Jackson Free Press

At 10 p.m. in Jackson, about 80 percent of the people who are watching TV have their sets tuned to one of the top-three local news stations.

Stuart Kellogg, general manager of WAPT, spoke at Friday Forum at Koinonia Coffee House this morning.

Within the past couple of decades, as the Internet and cable TV news stations grew in popularity, he said he realized that local news stations could offer something that the national stations couldn't.

"CNN is not going to do Jackson news. Cartoon Network is not going to do Jackson news; Cartoon Network isn't going to do Jackson cartoons," he said. "We are the local community, and we are going to focus on that."

He said more people in the Jackson area are watching the local news now than a few years ago, although the media landscape is changing. Newspaper sales are declining, and Jackson has one of the highest concentrations of homes with satellite TV providers in the country.

WAPT has had to adapt to the rise of the digital age, too. When the station first got a website, Kellogg said they weren't quite sure what to do with it. WAPT started by putting its weather radar on the site, then videos of stories that had already run on TV.

However, he soon realized that people didn't want to see old reports as much as they wanted to get the news immediately. While prime time for TV is in the evening, prime time for news on the Internet is between 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

At first he worried that putting stories up online would take viewers away from broadcasts, but local TV news remains popular. "We look at (the Internet) as a second screen," he said.

Kellogg said part of his philosophy of reporting comes from how he views the world as an evangelical Christian. His faith gives him a purpose in life, and that gives him the drive to make a positive impact in people's lives, he said.

"Yes, we're here for a job, but what we do touches so many others," he said.

One person in the audience said he had stopped watching TV news, in part because of the negative tone of much of the reporting, and he asked Kellogg why the news had that tone.

Kellogg said there are several reasons that they cover stories about things that go wrong. "We don't report on the planes that land correctly," he said. Stories about fires and crime are easy and draw in viewers, but they also touch people's lives, such as when a car wreck affects someone's commute.

"We try to balance it," he said, adding that people want to know what is going on, but the station is trying to look deeper at stories and look for more answers and accountability.