Hearst Communications
WLKY 32 News
Louisville, Kentucky, United States • Founded in 1961
WLKY 32 News is the local CBS television affiliate for the Louisville, Kentucky, area, covering news of local, national and international importance.
It focuses on politics, weather, sports, crime, investigative, education and human interest stories that impact the communities it covers. Owned by Hearst Television since 1998, WLKY was founded in 1961 by Kentuckiana Television, a group of local investors headed by aluminum magnate Archibald Cochran. Originally an ABC affiliate, the area only had CBS and NBC stations for more than 10 years prior to WLKY's founding due to the area's large geographical market and the rugged terrain over which the broadcasting technology needed to span. In 1990, changes in ownership meant WLKY became a CBS affiliate; while initially not a welcome change, the switch was major windfall the station, as it became Louisville's home for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Given the region's status as a college basketball hotbed with local teams Kentucky, Louisville, Indiana and Purdue longtime fixtures in the tournament, the games on WLKY are consistently among the highest-rated programs in the market, often with WLKY having the highest viewership of the tournament in the country.
WLKY inherits best practices policies from its parent news organization Hearst Television.
Hearst Television's purpose is based on service, with an aim to provide quality news and information to the local television markets that it serves. Hearst Television says it is passionate about truthful, independent, fair and non-biased reporting of stories and issues that impact the communities it serves. Hearst Television stations work to be leaders in the markets they serve.
Hearst Television news platforms strive to find the truth, maintain independence, ensure accuracy and report with ethics. As part of its ethics policy, the news platforms of Hearst are committed to checking facts, questioning information, providing context and remaining transparent with its reporting, affiliations and potential conflicts of interest. It operates independently and without influence of outside organizations or internal pressures.
Hearst Television, and its parent organization Hearst Corporation, is privately owned by the Hearst family and managed by a board of trustees. It is a multinational corporation, diversified into television, magazines, newspapers, trade publications, online media, real estate, finance and more. Hearst Television affiliates operate with editorial independence.
Hearst Television does not discriminate based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or disabilities. Hearst Television says it believes differences among its teams allow those teams to offer relevant, reflective and meaningful news coverage to the communities they serve in its 26 different local television markets.
Hearst Television says its platforms are committed to accuracy and transparency in reporting. Once mistakes are identified, the policy states changes are quickly made to acknowledge and address errors. Stories published to their platform websites note when a correction has been made.
Hearst Television says it does not rely single sources and avoids using unnamed sources unless necessary to protect the source from the threat of retaliation.
The Trust Project is an international consortium of news organizations building standards of transparency and working with technology platforms to affirm and amplify journalism’s commitment to transparency, accuracy, inclusion and fairness so that the public can make informed news choices. It was founded and is led by award-winning journalist Sally Lehrman.
Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist, was our original funder, through the Trustworthy Journalism Initiative of Craig Newmark Philanthropies. Google followed with their financial support. Our funders also have included Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Facebook. Funders. Trust Project policies and the Trust Indicators are shaped and enforced independently from our funding sources.