Network News for an Online Generation

Photo by Frederic Köberl on Unsplash

On January 5, 2021, April Williams kept a close eye on the streets of Washington, D.C. Supporters of President Donald Trump were gathering in the capital to protest what he claimed was a stolen 2020 election. Trump had promised to address them the next day, in advance of Congress voting to ratify Joe Biden’s victory. Williams (’97, COM’99), then a senior producer for the local NBC affiliate, WRC-TV, was alarmed by the size of the crowd and the tenor of the protests. She thought the next day could be explosive.

Williams met with correspondents and video crews to map their coverage. “I’m a crazy planner,” she says. She wanted to make sure that her team had a strategy ready to cover an unpredictable and potentially volatile day—and that they had security personnel to keep them safe. That preparation paid off when WRC-TV aired footage of the escalating violence on January 6, the day rioters forced their way into the Capitol.

“We got everything we needed, but it was a challenging time,” she says. “I had reporters coming back with bruises up their legs and photographers who had racial and all kinds of slurs thrown at them.”

Williams’ passion for journalism began in childhood—she looked up to her older sister, who worked for U.S. News & World Report—and is rooted in a desire to serve her community. She’s had roles in local and national news outlets, for all of the major networks, and has spent most of her 25-year career in Washington, D.C.

“I’m in a position where I can make sure people know what their rights are and what’s happening across the world that might impact them,” she says. “That’s really, truly, the driver for me at this moment. I see this as a public service.”

In June 2024, Williams joined ABC News Live as a senior producer responsible for live breaking news on the network’s 24-hour streaming platform. Because she oversees both morning and evening news teams, she’s often up at 4:30 am and online into the night.

In her first week on the job, the presidential debate sparked a call for President Biden to withdraw from the race. A couple of weeks later, an attempt to assassinate then candidate Trump at a Pennsylvania rally failed. For Williams, who’s responsible for political coverage, a second Trump presidency means no reprieve from the breakneck pace of the news cycle—and no relief from a growing threat to journalism.

A September 2024 Gallup Poll revealed the continued erosion of faith in the mass media, with only 31 percent of Americans expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the fairness and accuracy of the media; 36 percent chose “none at all.” The survey also revealed a partisan divide: 54 percent of Democrats expressed a trust in journalism while just 12 percent of Republicans did.

“It’s not a terribly friendly environment right now to be in the media,” Williams says. “What we’ve done has always been balanced, but we have to be much more overt about it and show viewers what we’re doing, how we’re fact checking, and who our sources are. We have to show our work.”

Williams wishes more people understood the reporting process. “It’s not just one person—it’s hundreds of people with different faiths, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds. There are Republicans and Democrats and independents,” she says. “We’re all working together and that’s how we’re able to be balanced.”

ABC News Live, which launched in 2018, operates parallel to the traditional televised ABC News. They each have their own resources and programs, but also coordinate coverage so they’re not overlapping—and they both frequently work with local ABC affiliates across the country to cover breaking news. ABC News Live seeks to capture new viewers and bring back cord-cutters who no longer have cable TV subscriptions. Unlike many streaming platforms, ABC News Live doesn’t require a cable log-in or standalone subscriptions. Viewers can stream via a free app or a web browser. Subscribers to Disney+ and Hulu can also watch within those apps, where election coverage popped up next to Moana or The Bear.

So far, the formula is working. According to Williams, ABC News Live drew more viewers to its stream of the Biden–Trump presidential debate than either NBC or CBS drew to their regular TV coverage—and the channel ended 2024 with more than 600 million hours streamed, its best year ever. “The tides are turning,” she says. “No one’s sitting down at 6 o’clock anymore to watch the evening news. We’re where the eyeballs are.”