“The news has a boring problem”: Sean McLaughlin has big ideas to save TV news
Tired of the constant, unvaried nature of today’s television newscasts, Sean McLaughlin – former anchor, reporter, and news director for various news stations – has dedicated his recent career to innovating newsrooms nationwide, going so far as to eliminate anchor roles and changing the newscast format.
Most recently, he served as the senior vice president of local news at The E.W. Scripps Company and currently is the director at large of the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA). His responsibilities include developing a news strategy to engage viewers across platforms.
With over 30 years in the local news industry, McLaughlin is now sharing his takeaways from experience and research in his TVNewsCheck column, “Reinventing the News.” He challenges the traditions of format, process, and storytelling in local TV news in his weekly articles.
Storybench spoke with McLaughlin about his new column and how he hopes his recommendations manifest a brighter future for local news.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired you to start your new column “Reinventing the News” on TVNewsCheck?
The guy who runs [TVNewsCheck] had done a couple of articles on some of the things we were doing inside Scripps last year, which were really significant efforts to blow up the news. I mean, we started launching products that didn’t have anchors. We started eliminating most non-reporting positions so we could hire more reporters. So, he had done a couple of stories on that and when he saw that I wasn’t working for Scripps anymore, he reached out to me and said, “Hey, you know what? I really would like to see somebody who is pretty forward-thinking in news write a column.”
I have to be kind of careful because I don’t want to write anything that freaks people out. [In response to] the article I wrote about blowing up the anchor role, that has people just freaking out, I’m like, “Okay, come on. Nobody likes the anchors anymore. You’ve got to get your head around it.”
Why it is important to address local news issues?
About 60% or more of the people who consume our stories consume them in a place outside the local TV station. The problem is we don’t get paid for that. But, there’s also this huge content void. I did a bunch of these research projects where I went and sat in people’s homes, and we talked forever about all these things related to news. I never once sat in anyone’s home and asked the question, “Do you care what’s going on in your local community?” [Because] the answer was “No.” People want to know what’s going on, but the problem is the way we deliver it and the stories we pick are out of touch with what people are looking for.
The news really has a boring problem. Everybody gets freaked out when I say that. The news is boring. We tell boring stories, we don’t find interesting people, we don’t dig deep enough on the issues that are important. They’re cliches. People are just really reluctant to admit that.
How can local news capture younger audiences or re-engage audiences they’ve lost?
What’s become clear to me is it’s really hard to design one product that is of appeal to [both] 20-year-olds and 70-year-olds. No other brand does that. I think the packaging of the news and the content of the news is no different. That’s why one of my big emphasis points with local newsrooms is the need to have more content, because I think you’re going to have to package in a lot of different ways. The expensive part of running a newsroom is the acquisition of the content from the field. But once we’ve acquired it into our newsroom, we can repackage it and redistribute it a lot of different ways.
The problem is nobody does it that way. We have to look at the audience more holistically, instead of this one size fits all. You end up with [young people] who come across this content and there’s either a disconnect with the content itself or a disconnect in the way it was told or put together. I think that’s where you start.
If a journalist or news organization were to come across your column, what would be the one thing you would want them to take away from it?
We’re almost out of time. I really believe that.
The audience is gone, the money’s drying up and there are already companies in the business literally shutting down newsrooms. I believe 2023 started what’s going to accelerate over the next three years, which is a period of local news contraction. That’s reporters coming off the streets and more communities with none or very few news organizations. I think everybody loses in that environment.
There’s an urgency to this that has not been there before. I just don’t think [the naysayers] see accurately what younger people see. At the end of the day, we can be as arrogant as we want about the content we produce, in the newscast we put together, but if nobody’s watching, what’s the point? There’s no more time left, I don’t believe.
What would your advice be to young or aspiring journalists hoping to have a career in local news?
Don’t go into a TV newsroom and be a 1985 reporter.
I’m not talking about changing the journalism. You have to have the facts, you have to have the depth, you have to have the context and perspective. But the packaging? There’s a ton of room to be creative.
I feel like we’ve settled on this one formula that’s existed forever. Even the young people are just reluctant to change it. Be the force that finally changes it. Speak up in your newsrooms. Don’t let some burned out, decrepit executive producer, you know, coax you into the 1985 formula. Have voice. Speak up. There’s no way you got into this business to produce stories like that.