For Local NBC Stations, Collaborative Journalism

On Dec 6, NBC will announce a series of partnerships between its television stations and nonprofit news organizations.

Effectively immediately, NBC’s station in Chicago will work with The Chicago Reporter blog and magazine; its station in Philadelphia, with WHYY, a public radio station, and its community site NewsWorks; and its station in Los Angeles, with KPCC, a public radio station. All 10 of NBC’s stations will at times collaborate with ProPublica, the acclaimed investigative journalism nonprofit organization.

The partnerships — which NBC said would help its stations better cover their cities — are a byproduct of Comcast’s successful bid to gain control of NBC Universal, including the 10 television stations owned by NBC. As the government considered the bid last year, Comcast made a number of promises about news coverage, one of them being that it would set up such partnerships with at least five of its stations. The proposal was modeled after the relationship between the NBC station KNSD in San Diego and the local Web site voiceofsandiego.org. The government subsequently put the partnership commitment in writing, and NBC started a casting call of sorts last May. Somewhat surprisingly, the company did not link exclusively with Web sites like voiceofsandiego.org, which is nationally recognized for its highly local journalism. Instead, it also teamed up with radio and print outlets. The Chicago Reporter, for instance, is a blog and bimonthly magazine that focuses on race and poverty issues and specializes in data analysis. WHYY, an affiliate of NPR, operates NewsWorks, a hyperlocal news site.