NBC, noncom reporting relationships "still in infancy" but producing stories

The collaborations between several NBC owned-and-operated stations and nonprofit news enterprises, part of Comcast's deal to takeover NBCUniversal (Current, Jan. 17), are generating "important stories they've broken together," reports TVNewsCheck.

KNBC Los Angeles and noncom KPPC-FM together revealed that a teacher arrested for sexually abusing students was paid to retire by the local school district. The nonprofit newsroom ProPublica provided data for stories on NBC stations in New York, Dallas, San Francisco, San Diego and Hartford, Conn., on federal stimulus money. And in Philadelphia, WCAU and noncom WHYY regularly share Web content such as political and cultural reporting and weather.

"The feel of the partnership is really good," Chris Satullo, WHYY's executive news director, told the media website. "I just don’t know if the output is where we want it to be.”

But as WCAU spokeswoman Kathleen Burke noted, the the relationship is “still in its infancy.”