Local News Anchors' Contributions to Newscasts

Abstract

No social scientist has paused to discover exactly what, if anything, local television news anchors contribute to the newscast beyond their obvious on-air performance, and the assertion that has categorized anchors as gatherers in the research literature hasn't been tested. With clear consonance, however, these researchers found that local television news anchors regularly complete news gatherer, news manager, and news performer tasks; they cross work roles to participate in multiple activities in the news process. Although this study doesn't answer why anchors complete some tasks, the results of this study do call into question the usefulness of the work roles typology of gatherer and manager, and the relationship of work roles to the news-factory analogy. Because anchors cross work roles and work under conflicting sets of norms—journalism and business or entertainment—there are implications for the understanding of the role anchors play in balancing those norms in the final on-air product. A survey of 895 top local anchors resulted in 451 usable surveys, for a 50.4% response rate. Future research about local television news workers should account for anchors as a separate group and not categorize them merely as news gatherers or merely as performers.