Fox station chief says scale sustains local journalism in the AI era

Jack Abernethy, the chief executive of Fox Television Stations, used an industry award speech in Washington to argue that local journalism needs the financial strength and scale to remain credible amid automated content and fragmented media. He said streaming could widen the reach of live local reporting, but that human editorial judgment, local presence and trust could not be replaced by algorithms. Abernethy made the remarks at The Media Institute’s Free Speech America Gala on Oct. 27, when he received the American Horizon Award. He cast scale as essential to free speech because financially healthy news organizations can investigate powerful institutions, verify information and provide emergency coverage. “In an era of automated content creation, trust becomes our single most valuable asset,” he said. His argument went beyond a general defence of local television. Abernethy said a proliferation of outlets or social-media voices does not necessarily yield stronger local reporting, and that marginally profitable newsrooms often cannot confront powerful interests. In his view, two or three trusted organizations with adequate resources can serve a community better than a fragmented collection of voices. The remarks were also a defence of consolidation in a policy environment where federal ownership restrictions have historically aimed to preserve competition and diversity among station operators. The Desk reported that station groups are ordinarily barred from directly owning licensed stations reaching more than 40% of the US viewing audience, while the National Association of Broadcasters and some broadcasters have pressed for looser rules so owners can acquire more assets. Abernethy presented streaming as a practical complement to broadcast rather than a substitute for local journalism. It allows stations to remain live on major streaming platforms when a main channel is occupied by sports or network programming, he said. He pointed to Fox-owned WTTG in Washington, which he said was nearing round-the-clock live news across broadcast and streaming and produces more than twice as much live news as its closest local competitor. He cited WTTG’s coverage of a Montgomery County, Maryland, school-redistricting dispute, saying the station gave parents 20 uninterrupted minutes to explain the effect on their families and helped residents organize for public hearings. He also said Fox stations remained continuously on air for more than a week during recent Los Angeles fires, frequently without commercials. Abernethy began as a cameraman at WRC Washington in 1987, covering the AIDS crisis, the crack cocaine epidemic and Washington politics. Since 2004, he has overseen Fox Corporation’s 29 owned-and-operated stations; The Media Institute said their locally produced news output has more than doubled to more than 1,500 hours a week. The case for scale is contested within the broader local-news debate. In February, Rebuild Local News President Steven Waldman told a Senate committee that consolidation and nationalization in newspapers and local television had aggravated the local-news crisis by reducing reporters and making coverage more superficial. He urged policymakers to focus on maintaining or increasing the number of local reporters rather than counting stations or programming hours. Abernethy nevertheless argued that technological change alters newsroom work without removing the need for journalism. His central claim was that the country remains informed from the ground up, through news organizations with the means to report from their own communities.