There are some things people are playing with: narrative, the role of anchor, how reporters interact with the community, story generation. Defining innovation will be step one. I’ve thought about that, the people at ASU have, and the most thoughtful leaders in TV news have. I was talking to a CEO of a news station, trying to be polite, and said ‘I’m not saying local TV news has to reinvent itself.’ He interrupted me and said ‘Andrew, local tv news has to reinvent itself.’ There’s a widespread realization that the existing formats, while appealing to a plurality of the American public, are not translating to a new generation of consumers.

One question I had is: Why would people tell us their competitive secrets? I think that’s an issue, but not for what we’ll be looking for. I’m hoping we’ll get guidance from the station groups. You know there’s been enormous consolidation. What’s working in terms of the business, in terms of strict consolidation aspects of it?

But there’s plenty to find and look at. There are over 800 stations doing local TV news in a couple hundred markets. There is a group at Northeastern doing a similar research study. You start with the groups and existing works, and take it from there.

What we haven’t figured out on the ASU side of the project is a line between prescriptive and descriptive. Prescriptive is really ambitious and will take a lot of work. I’m only leading the research piece [of the Knight-funded initiative] but will be working closely with the other two [collaboration and experimentation]. The MIT project might fit into the ‘is this something worth trying?’ group. In terms of my activities and interests, I do think figuring out what’s important to the people in a given market is a key part of sustainable news.

On the MIT side, it’s a lab, and we are experimenting with new ways of listening and gauging what’s important to citizens as a way to promote civic engagement and as not just a byproduct but as an encourager of local journalism. There’s really been a shift in the focus in the past year of back to local news, and we could get into that if you want.

Local news has its own problems. But its nature has a lot going to it: there is a lot of common ground, there’s some things we both care about. We can’t really be demonized as fake news, because first of all the stories and the reporters are right there for all the world to see. Especially with the reporters on camera — you can see them in line at the supermarket. In smaller markets, people in TV news are local celebrities — they are known and involved in local affairs.

Whether you’re railing against MSNBC or Fox News, you’re dismissing huge chunks of cable news and the people who watch it. Local TV news is still profitable. Newspapers are profitable too, but they’ve had enormous cuts. It’s less so in TV — there’s been cutbacks, but not as much for TV news. There’s still money for innovation on the TV side; for newspapers, it’s been more of a problem. But that’s another reason to focus on local TV.

In some places, local is the most important place for people to get news and information — and not just about their own region, but to connect to national issues. That’s another key factor a lot of people ignore. The media focuses on cable news, but if you look at the numbers, they’re not that huge compared to national population. But local TV news is huge in the aggregate. You’ll hear people say Channel 2, that will be CBS News. Local TV news is the number one source of news in the country. It’s hugely trusted at a time when trust in journalism is at risk. Local TV news does really well and it’s still profitable. And starting with the common ground is a huge advantage compared to national media.

It’s a mixed bag — I don’t think there are super successful models. There are criteria for serving the public in interesting and different ways to attract new users, and also to generate sustainable revenue. We’ll look for those — I’m sure there’s some. But we don’t have a tried-and-true formula for social media the way we have a formula for local TV.

By the time we define innovation broadly and have a sense of which of those areas is the richest, we’ll start getting some interesting findings right away. Now we have a comprehensive picture of the entire innovation landscape. That’s where I’m hoping the consolidation will be a boon to us: We’ll have the station groups to help steer us to the most innovative stories rather than piecing through the haystack and trying to find the needles ourselves. We’re not just going to start randomly — it’s a journalism job, we’re going to have to follow a lead, develop sources. As you know, a dauntingly blank canvas starts filling up pretty quickly. There’s been a lot of focus in the newspaper world and hyperlocal and digital native, so it’s really exciting to focus on local TV too.