About 28 percent of television news directors at stations having partnerships with a local newspaper are likely to share video or photographs with their news partner if that partner misses or chooses not to cover a story.
The finding is from a study of convergence among news operations at TV stations, newspapers and Web sites, being conducted by researchers at Ball State University. The study — the second of a three-part series investigating convergence — also revealed that about half of all U.S. television stations with news operations have a partnership with a newspaper regardless of market size.
Other findings related to newsgathering, include:
- 28.7 percent of news directors say that at least once per month they share a physical resource with their partner, such as allowing a photojournalist to ride in a news helicopter or a journalist to work from a bureau office;
- 64.3 percent never do;
- 6.3 percent share the cost of special projects or investigations with their partner at least once a month;
- 25.1 percent do so at least four times per year;
- 44.6 percent never do.
The study also revealed that about a third of news operations share story lineups. Specifically:
- 29.5 percent of news directors say they share a complete lineup with their partner once per week;
- 34.6 percent share a partial lineup at least once per week;
- 50.9 percent never share a partial lineup;
- 65.2 percent never share a complete lineup.
The study follows the first installment last year, which investigated convergence from the point of view of newspaper editors. For this study, researchers contacted news directors at 732 TV stations and received responses from 231, or 31.1 percent. An executive summary of the findings was released July 1.
