Rethinking local news

J-school instructor and alum Winston Sih's podcast Staying Alive is an audio study for journalists, by journalists. 

The four-part series explores how local newsrooms can maintain their traction in a time of digital media and how newsrooms can expand their diversity and outreach to diverse communities.

"News is something that I know a lot about, and I knew that it was something that I was passionate about," says Sih. "So it was something that I knew I could run with and have access to the right people to help answer some of these questions."

Each instalment focuses on a broad topic involving local newsrooms and features a different guest speaker per episode.

Sih says a standout episode for him was the first one, with journalism professor and principal investigator of the Local News Research Project (LNRP), (external link)  April Lindgren.

"There's been a lot of research in the U.S. in terms of media convergence, companies buying local television stations, and then selling some off, buying others, finding efficiencies," says Sih. "In Canada, we have a very unique media system where companies like Bell, Rogers, Corus, they own these local television stations. So there wasn't enough specific academic research behind that, which is where I kind of saw the gap to help fill things in."

Sih created the series as a requirement for his master's degree with RTA's school of media, but he hopes to continue the series in the future, with a few ideas already in mind.

"So one of the issues I explored, Bill C-10, was a big point of discussion. Early on in the election campaign, it's something we've been talking about. And it's around mandating streamers like Netflix, Spotify, and other online-only players to pay into funding the ecosystem," Sih said.

Overall, what he hopes to do is open the door for the new generation of reporters.

"I'd love to get some younger journalists on as well, where they can share some of their ideas. I'd love to open this as a conversation. So that it can be this kind of ongoing thing where we keep revisiting."