If you’re a News 5 viewer, you may have noticed many of our stories now include the promise “We Follow Through.” I think you’re smart enough to get what it means. What we have yet to do is explain why we’re doing it.
‘You only show up when something bad happens.’
Audience research tells us that a major criticism of TV news is that we only get part of the story. Worse, we only get the part of the story that casts a community in a negative light. This is a broad criticism of TV news in general, not just us.
In the past, we have covered many stories thoroughly. But our commitment to the story was not always apparent in the way the story was told. We could be three months into coverage, and you might not know it from the latest report. So, even when we were doing exactly what the audience wanted, they were unsatisfied. That’s a problem.
A type of story, a style of storytelling, and a philosophy
We Follow Through means a couple of things.
It’s a type of story.
A “We Follow Through” can be a major story that everyone covered and that we’re advancing again and again with new information and new interviews, offering a deeper report. It can also be a community story that one of our reporters hustled up on their own and is continuing to report with fresh information and perspectives.
It’s also a style of story.
Our reports now make it clear when we have been covering a particular story, and we say that will continue to do so. In TV news, you can get all kinds of new information and go on the air with it, but if you’re not properly contextualizing that information, the audience is left wanting. How we tell stories matters just as much as the stories we choose to tell.
It’s a philosophy.
Through our work, we are informing the public as best we can while also signaling to our viewers our willingness to go deep on every story we cover so that we’re the local news station you trust. We Follow Through means, well, we follow through, but it also means we’re the ones who will always give you more.
This is our strength
At a Press Club event last year, the news directors from all four TV stations were in agreement that each Cleveland TV station offers something unique in terms of a news philosophy. Our lane is depth and context.
East Palestine is a good example. After everyone else cleared out, our reporters, investigators and photographers kept going back for months to unearth new problems, conduct surveys, interview officials and spotlight issues in the community. It’s September, and our journalists are still going back. I can give you many more examples like this.
Why do this now?
We soft-launched this effort a few months ago and subsequently spent a lot of time and energy tweaking and refining how to get viewers what they need.
We’re ready.
Today, we’re launching a significant marketing campaign to amplify the way we are reimagining how local news is delivered. You’re going to see billboards and TV spots and hear commercials on the radio talking about how we follow through, not only for Northeast Ohio but WITH Northeast Ohio.
The We in ‘We Follow Through’ includes you
At the bottom of every individual “We Follow Through” story on the News 5 website is a feedback form. Viewers are encouraged to tell News 5 if they want more coverage of a story, offer possible story ideas, and provide tips. The station has already received hundreds of responses over the last several months, many of which have been used to inform our coverage.
Do you have a story you want us to follow through on? You can fill out the form at the bottom of the stories on our website and let us know. We read every single one. I promise. You might even say we…
Joe Donatelli is the Digital Director at News 5 Cleveland. Subscribe to his newsletter that offers readers a lively roundup of the top stories of the day in Northeast Ohio.
