Hearst Boosts Group-wide Election Coverage

Hearst Television released details of Commitment 2012, the latest iteration of the company’s biannual election-coverage efforts, which began with Commitment 2000 and which have earned a Peabody Award and multiple USC Annenberg Walter Cronkite Awards, including six group-wide honors.

Hearst owns stations in Des Moines, Iowa (KCCI), and Manchester, New Hampshire (WMUR), the two markets where the 2012 presidential campaign begins with the Iowa caucuses, and the New Hampshire primary, on Jan. 10. Commitment 2012, the company said, will involve “an intensified effort at the company’s 25 news-producing TV stations, and on their respective local websites and mobile sites, to provide comprehensive local TV news coverage of national, state and local election campaigns on-air, online and via mobile devices.” A cornerstone feature of Commitment 2012 will be “12 in 12” — a pledge of a minimum 12 minutes’ airtime for daily political news and candidate-discourse coverage per weekday and, where possible, on weekends, in the 30 days leading up to the primary and general elections at each of its news-producing stations. Hearst says this represents a 20% increase — or some 25 additional hours for a total of 150 hours group-wide over the 30-day period — from the 10 minutes daily that Hearst first pledged in 2006. In addition, each station will produce a “Virtual Town Hall” or discussion in the 30 days leading up to the election.