SCRIPPS GOING AFTER ITS SMALLER NEWSROOMS

Back in February, we reported that Scripps announced that it would eliminate 300 jobs in the next 12 months.

We had hoped that a May announcement by Scripps, in which the company promised to “invest nearly $10 million to increase compensation where needed to ensure we can attract and retain the best journalists” and “add about 250 on-the-ground resources to our local reporting teams,” would mitigate that threat.

Hope dies hard.

Recently, Scripps has been riding roughshod over its stations in Ft. Myers, FL, Bakersfield, CA Colorado Springs, CO and Lansing, MI

And now in Waco, TX as a NewsBlueser relates:

“Big cuts by Scripps at KXXV in Waco yesterday.

4 editors, a digital manager, one weather person and the evening anchors are all having their positions “eliminated” come December. The anchors can continue as MMJs if they want, but there will be no more live shows in the evenings. It’ll all be pre recorded.

About 6-7 mid to smaller Scripps stations are moving to this model in the next 6-9 months. Very few live shows, everything prerecorded as a “Scripps Cast” and then local MMJ stories put into those Scripps Casts.

Painful and a sign of what’s to come. What do you do in major breaking news? Will there even be web teams? It’s unbelievable.”

It is indeed unbelievable as Scripps seems to be following the recent Sinclair model of scrapping local news teams and replacing them with a “national” newscast of dubious quality and little relevance to the affected markets.

We expected better.