This research investigates whether projects and movements designed to change the norms of local television journalism have succeeded. It explores this question through the case of Best Practices 2000 (BP2K), a foundation-funded organization aimed at improving local television public affairs coverage. This research compares BP2K to two other recent attempts to improve or increase local television public affairs coverage - civic journalism and the Wisconsin Collaborative Project. Stations working to improve public affairs coverage are compared to traditional market-driven journalism stations. This study explores the extent to which these efforts can change news coverage, and in doing so deepens our knowledge of the norms of market-driven news routine, which these projects, at least implicitly, question.
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