Broadcasting: Making the Most of the Medium

All too often, across the U.S., television's local news coverage veers from dull to deplorable. Bumptious reporters shove microphones into faces and ask inane questions, and cameras are trained interminably on fires and auto accidents. Few are the electronic journalists who make the most of their medium's exciting possibilities. Those that do, though, point the way not only for their local colleagues but also for their big-time rivals on the networks.

Perhaps no station has done more journalistic pioneering than New Orleans' WDSU-TV. Owned by Edgar B. Stern Jr., a major stockholder in Sears, Roebuck, WDSU begins with a built-in advantage:...