I’ve always thought it was kind of sad when local news networks try to cover national stories; they just don’t have the resources. But when national news networks try to cover local stories, the problem can still apply. The CNN site – a leader among national news sources – is going to see if it can avoid this issue while it increases local coverage.
CNN Site Sees Value In Local Coverage
Yet Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Cooper aren’t going to start showing up at high school football games; instead, a deal between CNN and Internet Broadcasting (IB) enabled this experiment. IB “publishes the Web sites of 70 local TV stations,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s Emily Steel, and the arrangement “allows CNN to use local stories from any of those sites, and vice versa.”
Still, CNN.com may not be assured a victory in the local news market. Mike Vorhaus, a managing director at Frank N. Magid Associates, told Steel, “People don’t really turn to CNN for news about a local school board. Their No. 1 priority should be what they are best known for.”
Vorhaus may be right, and this shift will definitely demand that the Cable News Network establish some priorities. After all, a CNN video titled “School doors glued shut” is already higher on the main page than an article about “Iraq plans for possible U.S. exit.” Perhaps this problem could be addressed by putting the local news in some out-of-the-way corner of the site.
Going local on the World Wide Web is a popular trend, however, as recent events at both Google and Yahoo should prove.
