CBS launching ‘news innovation lab’ in DFW

By Matt Collins Article may include affiliate links

CBS Television Stations will create what it calls a “news innovation lab” out of its Dallas–Ft. Worth properties to start producing “next-generation storytelling.”

Based out of KTVT and KTXA, “The lab will serve as the home of a curated team of CBS News and Stations employees including several new hires, who will be empowered to experiment with next-generation storytelling, such as data journalism, and test new products, workflows and production models for the future,” CBS told Variety.

Andrea Parquet-Taylor, who has been at KCBS and KCAL in Los Angeles, has been named to head up the first initiative at the lab, “working directly with CBS Stations’ local newsrooms across the country, collaborating with the existing news, investigative and special projects teams, while also building and leading a team of journalists who will support original, next-generation storytelling across CBS News and Stations’ platforms, per CBS Stations.”

Insiders say this is all a fancy way to say that the first effort is a project to create a hub in DFW that will help produce hybrid newscasts out of Texas for CBS-owned stations in that and other markets. This may include combing Texas-based talent anchoring newscasts in markets across the country.