Print meets broadcast: Spotlight PA/Nexstar partnership expands investigative reach

Spotlight PA reporter Stephen Caruso covers a recent election in Pennsylvania. (Photo credit: Matt Smith)

Our Nexstar collaboration reaches 10 million additional people, a feat that is difficult to achieve in one fell swoop. The Press Forward grant allows us to evolve the pilot program and provide access to independent, community and public TV stations.”

Christopher Baxter, founding editor, CEO and president of Spotlight PA

For many years, the three primary media — print, radio and television — successfully operated within their distinct silos. They attracted large, loyal audiences and advertisers eager to invest in engaging with those audiences. Digital technologies and media, however, have disrupted the competitive advantages of traditional media.

To sustain their audiences and protect their bottom lines, news operations must break through the walls of the silos and create collaborative partnerships with other local media. Only then can they deliver the news content the public wants and in the many new forms of the digital age. 

Collaboration among local news operations is not a new trend, but more recent combinations are more challenging and more valuable when successful. One of these is the one-year partnership between Spotlight PA, a nonprofit primarily focused on investigative reporting, and Nexstar's five Pennsylvania television stations. Often, a successful collaboration of this kind rests on the efforts of individuals. Christopher Baxter, founding editor, CEO and president of Spotlight PA, and Phil Dubrow, vice president and general manager of WTAJ, Nexstar’s Altoona station, worked closely to discover how to convert long-form investigative reporting to short-form TV news. 

“Investigative reporting can be difficult to visualize and manage the production component. From the beginning of Spotlight six years ago, I knew the value proposition for TV would be different, but I didn’t know how to crack that nut. I spent two and a half years trying to find someone in the broadcast world to join me in this effort. A year and a half ago, Phil sent me a note about the excellence of our reporting and was interested in how we could do more with it,” Baxter said.

(L to r) Spotlight PA’s Angela Couloumbis, investigative reporter; Elizabeth Estrada, democracy editor; Stephen Caruso, Capitol reporter; Kate Huangpu, government reporter; and Katie Meyer, government editor/reporter, at the Pennsylvania Capitol (Photo credit: Dani Fresh)

During an initial lunch and subsequent meetings, they created a pilot program that has proven workable and successful during the past year, resulting in a $500,000 grant from Press Forward to continue the collaboration for three more years.

“We already have more than 130 Pennsylvania newsrooms, including some Gannett and McClatchy operations, under a license agreement to republish our content. Our Nexstar collaboration reaches 10 million additional people, a feat that is difficult to achieve in one fell swoop. The Press Forward grant allows us to evolve the pilot program and provide access to independent, community and public TV stations,” Baxter said.

Baxter and Dubrow had created the collaboration, but the nuts-and-bolts process to translate investigative print reporting to local TV required a media professional who could fill the gap. That pro is Mitch Blacher. His career included many years as an investigative TV reporter, and he was familiar with Spotlight PA.

“Mitch was an important addition to the process. He understands both sides and their needs, and he knows how to meld them together. Our reporters enjoy seeing their stories brought to life on TV, which allows them to reach a different audience. They trust him because they know he's not trying to hack their stories,” Baxter said.

According to Baxter, Blacher writes an initial script translated from an investigative article and shares it with the reporter and editor to check accuracy. Upon approval, Blacher produces the video content at the Spotlight PA offices. He creates four to six segments a month, including a short version for the smaller slots in morning news and a more extended version for other news broadcasts.

Baxter and Dubrow continue to tweak their collaboration, creating mini documentaries, pursuing sponsorship opportunities and offering internships to contribute to the video production process.

Baxter invites other news outlets to contact him to learn how they could develop a similar collaboration at cbaxter@spotlightpa.org.

Bob Sillick has held many senior positions and served a myriad of clients during his 47 years in marketing and advertising. He has been a freelance/contract content researcher, writer, editor and manager since 2010.  He can be reached at bobsillick@gmail.com.