March 13, 2025
Local TV and radio stations provide Americans' most trusted news, helping their communities cut through social media misinformation and understand the facts. Broadcasters take this duty seriously, especially when it comes to covering the welfare of children in their communities. The in-depth investigative reporting of broadcasters across the country provides government accountability, important public health news and crucial information to keep their children safe and help them thrive. These examples of broadcasters' investigative work across the country include issues that are top-of-mind for parents, such as schools, public health and the opioid crisis.
Following an investigative report from Nexstar’s KXAN in Austin, Texas,a new bill has been filed in the Texas state Senate to shore up the state’s collection of truancy court information. The legislation follows a KXAN investigation that discovered although over 86,000 students have been sent to court for truancy since 2016, “no state agency has been watching what ultimately happens to them in the process.” “It’s kind of a mystery that once these students are referred to court, what is the court actually doing, what action is the court taking, and whether this is helping students,” Texas Appleseed Senior Staff Attorney Renuka Rege said. “I think that it could get bipartisan support because it’s simply collecting more information. We’re just trying to see the data around what’s happening, to find out if what we’re doing is effective or not.”
"CBS News California Investigates" launched in 2024 with the goal of making the state politics more transparent. CBS California stated that “Digital democracy gave us unprecedented statehouse data analysis tools, but a combination of good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting, thoughtful storytelling and passionate parents enabled us to demonstrate the real-life implications of our findings for a general audience.”
At the beginning of this year, “CBS News California Investigates” in Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles debuted “California’s Fentanyl Fight: Politicians V. Parents,” a half-hour special culminating a year-long investigation into the state’s handling of fentanyl legislation. The special provided “an unprecedented look at how California's one-party supermajority legislature systematically avoids transparency and accountability by killing controversial legislation without voting on the record,” the report said.
In their investigation of Washington state’s child endangerment law, the King 5 Investigators team at TEGNA-owned King 5 Seattle spoke to Lilly Peden, a mother who lost her toddler to an accidental fentanyl overdose. The law “includes tough penalties for exposing children to methamphetamine but not for fentanyl,” the station reported. Incorporating statistics on pediatric poisoning in the state and interviews with state officials, along with Peden’s story, the investigation explored new legislation aiming to include fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into the current law.
With reports of measles across the country, including one case reported in Maryland, Hubbard Radio’s WTOP in Washington, D.C., spoke to a local pediatrician about the dangers of “measles parties.” Texas recently warned parents against the practice. “It can lead to the death of that child because they’re immunocompromised or a really severe illness causing them to be hospitalized,” Dr. Gabrina Dixon, a pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital, said.
NBC owned-and-operated NBC Philadelphia is conducting an ongoing investigation into “forever chemicals” in the drinking water at Pennsylvania schools. Most recently, they reported on four schools in southeastern Pennsylvania where persistent levels of the chemicals put them in violation of the state’s drinking water standard. “We just need more information about what's happening and what they're really doing to address the situation,” one local parent told the station.
During News Literacy Week in February, Scripps’ News Channel 5 in Nashville, Tenn., reported on the conspiracy theories teens are exposed to online. “Sometimes a friend will just come to me and talk about how they went through a rabbit hole on social media, just scrolling and scrolling. And it's like, you are watching people give their opinions,” one 10th grade student said. “It's like, I saw it on TikTok. It has to be true. And it's like, no, that's not true. Why would you say that?” The report shared the school’s efforts to teach media literacy and shared more news literacy resources.
More than 2.47 million American jobs depend on broadcasting, and the local broadcast radio and television industry - and the businesses that depend on it - generate $1.17 trillion annually for the nation's economy.
This site is brought to you by the National Association of Broadcasters. We advocate for the nation's radio and television broadcasters.
