A study was conducted to investigate the extent to which local television stations exhibited diversity in newscast content within three midwest broadcast markets. A second objective was to describe the nature of the news content characteristic of local news stories that were broadcast by only one station within a market (or unique news stories). A content analysis of 45 local television newscasts on nine different stations was followed by the administration of in-depth interviews with the stations' news editors. The interviews solicited information from the editors about sources of unique news stories and about their perceived newsroom philosophies in the coverage of unique news stories. Results showed that more than half of local stories analyzed were categorized as unique. These stories most frequently involved the topic Human Interest/Feature when analyzed with respect to all local stories. (Appendixes contain definitions of news story topics and brief summaries of each local news story analyzed.) (Author/FL)