Character-driven journalism is not new to newspapers, though it once was. It was once called The New Journalism in the 1960s — see Truman Capote or Tom Wolfe. Today it is industry standard. Why not take the Sopranos or Breaking Bad formula and marry it to TV journalism? (How many interviews have you seen in The Sopranos? How many Man on the Street soundbites have you seen in Breaking Bad?)
There is a great deal of concern, well placed, that few people under the age of 30 watch TV news.
Viewership of TV news in general has fallen off, so naturally, TV executives across the boards are searching for a solution. How to appeal to a demographic that spends most of their time on social media?