Local News Is Still Vital

Last night, during the opening monologue of his show, Jimmy Kimmel praised local Los Angeles media for their lively and tireless coverage of the devastating fires. “I want to thank the local news reporters who reminded us how important local TV, radio and newspapers are,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

There has never been stronger evidence of how desperate we are to maintain local news teams, not just as a city, but as a nation. Last Wednesday, Chris Christie, AIR7 helicopter reporter for ABC7 Eyewitness News, became another prime example of this when he spotted the Sunset Fire as it started in the Hollywood Hills.

The day before, at about 10:30 a.m., when the Palisades Fire broke out, all news helicopters were grounded, and not just because of the extremely high winds. “President Biden was in town, so there were temporary flight restrictions that prevented us from taking off to fly over the fires,” Christie says. When the boss is in town, the TFR is 30 miles, and no one can fly unless you are police or rescue. Christie was frustrated by this. “Viewers rely on that instant information and that vivid image,” he says. Residents — and as the crisis expanded, the world — saw how badly we needed local reporters on the scene when we turned to them for answers.

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By Tuesday evening, ABC7 was able to obtain permission to fly, “something that has never been done, to my knowledge,” Christie says. “Basically, we reached out to our staff at the White House, and they connected us with the Secret Service and eventually gave us a waiver to fly.” But by then the wind was impossible anyway. “For me as a reporter, it was really painful because we couldn't do our job.”

On Wednesday night, Christie, who works the evening shift on one of the few remaining three-person air crews on local news in Los Angeles, was flying over the Palisades Fire when he spotted something alarming in the east around Hollywood — something he described as “a little speck In the hills.” The team did not hear any reports of a fire in that area, but went there anyway to investigate.

In less than five minutes, it took them to reach Runyon Canyon, the beloved hiking area located just above Hollywood. “It went from a small spot to a 20-acre fire,” Christie says. “I'm sure the people in Runyon Canyon off Franklin are [Avenue] And those streets were probably calling 911 because they must have seen what was happening. The news crew was very close and very fast, and Christie says they got to the scene first, and then were able to share photos of what was happening.

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Mark Sternfeld, KTLA 5's digital director, was in his office on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood when the Sunset Fire caught fire. “We could see the fire from our property in the Hollywood Hills, and fortunately firefighters were able to identify the evacuation zone, limit evacuation orders, and contain this fire, but it was very close,” he says. KTLA Building 5 is located just one block east and a block south of the evacuation zone that was established that night. Sternfeld, who works on the news desk “at the nexus for all the communications that come in,” credits the station's “incredible professionals who have great empathy for what the public is going through and know how to handle these topics with sensitivity and precision.” “With all professionalism.”

This is what lies at the heart of local news: true empathy and personal connection. Not only are these reporters immediately on site, they are part of the community themselves, and during the horrific events of the past week, they are reporting on events happening to them and their families as well.

Given Christie's vantage point in the sky, he received large requests from evacuees to fly over their homes and tell them what remained. Thus, it was his personal duty to let many people know that their homes and everything they owned had been reduced to rubble and ashes. I asked him how he coped with telling them and he paused for a moment. “It was difficult,” he says.

“These are the times when local news media are at their best,” Sternfeld says. “There is no doubt that local news media are best equipped to provide critical, real-time coverage during emergencies and natural disasters, like the horrific wildfires we saw in Los Angeles over the past week That's because we don't just cover the communities we serve, we cover them Live in it. These are our family members, our neighbors, our coworkers, our teachers, and the members of our churches and synagogues. Local journalists have the knowledge and empathy to understand what the public needs when disasters like this strike.

But cuts to local news have been brutal in recent years. As people shift to online viewing, revenues shift, broadcast teams shrink and local newspapers fold. “It's changed a lot,” says Christie, who was a helicopter correspondent in Los Angeles for a decade. “It's been amazing to me, how many people don't watch this on TV at all. A lot of people I talk to rely on YouTube to watch ABC7 and other stations. It's changing in real time. We encourage our viewers to download our ABC7 app Where you can get the latest streams of breaking news During emergencies and during breaking news user engagement is vital to keeping it alive until we figure out how to get revenue back up.

He is lucky, he says, to have a three-person air team, and stresses that many other helicopter reporters now have to do double duty, juggling camera and all reporting duties simultaneously.

The Skymap technology Christie's team uses to precisely map the scope of fires “requires a lot of attention,” he says. The cameraman aboard their helicopter also establishes the signal with the station, allowing Christie and the pilot to focus on their own tasks. “We're flying around with the pilot who's doing nothing but focusing on flying the helicopter safely. Then I'm at the front collecting information. Since my hands aren't on the camera, I'm online while I'm reporting, and I'm on social media while I'm reporting. I'm spreading the word Across my different platforms on TikTok, on Instagram, on X. There's a lot of multitasking that we do there.

Perhaps it was the fact that he was able to focus solely on the reports that had allowed him that crucial moment to spot the Sunset Fire early.

“The news industry has gotten a bad rap, especially in the last five to 10 years, as people no longer trust TV news the way they used to,” Christie continues. “Local news is still vital and people turn to local news for life-saving information during critical situations.” During emergencies, during coronavirus, during fires, during storms, this is how people sometimes get life-saving information.

“We can provide detailed information about which streets have been evacuated, where the fires are now, where they're going, where these evacuees can go,” KTLA's Sternfeld adds. “And having access to all these different channels combined is really critical because people are consuming their news.” In a lot of different ways, not just watching a linear broadcast, but across social media and all of those broadcast channels and so our goal and the goal of our news media counterparts is to provide that important information and reach audiences in as many ways as possible, integrated Close with local first responders, to spread the word and ensure that we are seen as the leading source of truly reliable local information that will help protect people's lives and property.

Christie says he was “inundated with emails and messages” from viewers. “It was really moving,” he says. “Our team at ABC7 did an amazing job. Not only from the helicopter, but we have a team of ground reporters and anchors who were very responsible and articulate in trying to provide this information live on TV and online. Our viewers hang on every word in times like these.” It's a nice reminder that despite the lack of trust in our industry, people still appreciate what we do.