Last week, Steve Davis and I attended the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) 2025 Annual Conference where we reconnected with our fellow archivists and television news collectors in Baltimore, Maryland. This year’s conference highlighted the growing interest in preserving news media – especially programs from local television stations. The conference included five sessions dedicated to the topic of television preservation, in addition to many more conversations, presentations, and demonstrations about saving magnetic media more generally.
The News Documentary and Local TV (NDTV) committee reported on their work publishing the Good Practice for TV Archives Management Grid, a free tool that can help archivists working with local TV news collections conduct practical assessments in order to make informed decisions about the steps needed to preserve their objects. During the committee meeting, we had a great discussion on strategies to build awareness of existing repositories of TV collections. We also discussed new ideas for making it easier for documentary producers to find and license historical footage.
I was also thrilled to learn of the work in progress by the Archive Producers Alliance, with a grant-funded project to survey the state of local news collections within New York City. We will be watching their progress and through AMIA, we hope to build on their developments to create a model that can be followed by other news markets across the United States. We all recognize that part of the challenge with preserving local TV is the lack of understanding and appreciation for just how much local history is at risk of being lost forever.
Despite these challenges, I’m optimistic that the community of journalists, archivists, and educators cultivated through AMIA can come together to both save these important artifacts of cultural heritage and put them to use in new and exciting ways.
