I was only able to stay for part of a luncheon featuring the news directors of the local TV stations at the Commerce Club downtown yesterday.

Doug Richards, the esteemed blogger at Live Apartment Fire and a former reporter at WAGA-TV, chronicled the talks nicely on his blog.

Denis O’Hayer, former WXIA-TV broadcaster, moderated. He started asking the newest news director Ellen Crooke of WXIA-TV about her recent comments at UGA in which she said local news “sometimes stinks.”

“The way people consumer news and information has forced us to stop doing local news like we always have,” she said. “Local news becomes a list of horrible things: shootings, car accidents and stabbings. Our communities are much more than that.”

Budd McEntee of WAGA-TV wouldn’t say news “stinks” but simply said it can be “improved upon.” Mr. Diplomat, he said, “all four stations do a nice job giving perspective. It doesn’t stink.”

Marian Pittman of WSB-TV justified covering fires and accidents “because you never know if the mayor is in the car. It doesn’t mean you have to air it.”

Steve Schwaid at WGCL-TV said he doesn’t want to do “homogenized” news but says newsrooms sometimes “live in a bubble,” that news travels fast now via Blackberries and Facebook, that local news programs have to be willing to move on a dime and not just recycle news from 12 hours earlier.

I missed the Q&A but I spoke with Mitch Leff, a local publicist, who asked what’s something innovative each station has done. He said Pittman at WSB-TV and Schwaid at WGCL-TV didn’t offer much in the way of substance but was bemused by McEntee’s response. He noted the I-Team, the 10 p.m news and “Good Day Atlanta,” all “innovations” that happened long before the Internet was prominent.

Crooke was the only one, he said, who provided recent innovations, including WXIA’s webcasting of its editorial meetings and the occasional use of one major topic during the 11 p.m. news. Recently, the station did one just on how to save money in a tough economy. Someone actually videotaped her answer:

Richards said they also talked about “backpack journalists,” the types who not only stand in front of the camera but also have to take shots as well. WXIA-TV has been experimenting with this low-cost option for a few years and apparently, WGCL and WSB are starting to use them as well. Schwaid, Richards noted, prefers the term “hybrid.”

And about the current experiment regarding pooling of camera crews during press conferences involving WAGA, WGCL and WXIA, Pittman at WSB said she wasn’t even invited. But even if she had been, she wouldn’t have done it. (WSB is No. 1 in the market, which helps her take the high road on that cost-cutting measure.)

Disclosure: I’m on the board of the Atlanta Press Club, which sponsored the talk.