News Director: Ryan Hazelwood
Experience described as: “Toxic, abusive, manipulative, liar, empty promises, inept”
While working for KOAA this person experienced:
An Overall Toxic Work Environment
“If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself considering working for KOAAā¦ RUN, do not walk, to your nearest emergency exit.
Basically back in February or March the ND, AND and Assigment Editor managers were like āpandemicās over no more zoom interviews. All interviews have to be done in person.ā
They said this, despite the fact none of us had been vaccinated yet, and we still werenāt allowed to work in our building. (Fun fact: I never worked a day in our building)
I told them unless they could make it as easy as possible for us to get the vaccine (give us PTO to go get it), I would still be doing zoom interviews when I felt it would be safest to do so.
They told me basically to suck it up, and do in-person interviews, and if I wanted a vaccine, Iād have to get it during one of my shifts or an off day. Well the second dose fell to where Iād have to get it on a day I worked, and I flat out told them Iām not going to turn a full story today and still take two hours to go get my vaccine that will in turn make me feel like shit all day.
Ever since then, theyāve been playing little petty games with me.
My news director, assistant news director, and assignment editor would straight up bully me during our pitch meetings, in front of everyone on zoom. (Yes, we still did our pitch meetings on zoom, but couldnāt do interviews on zoom.)
They told us we were no longer allowed to interview PIOs in any story, and every story had to have a āreal personā/ācharacterā angle, which is great. I like that too.
Except theyād even turn those down.
One time I pitched a local fire department going for a Mill levy election to expand service to their growing community.
To that, my assignment editor said verbatim: āwell unless you can find a real person who almost died because of long response times Iām not interested.ā
It was like that for everything I pitched.
Meanwhile, the MMJ who has been there for 25 years would literally pitch story after story with just one source, usually a PIO, and theyād treat him like he was Godās gift to news.
One time he literally pitched āthis park is getting a new gate out by the parking lot,ā and they literally didnāt bat an eye.
Meanwhile nothing, and I mean nothing I pitched would be good enough for them.
And if your story idea doesnāt fall under one of the 5 pillars of the Scripps content strategy, you can forget it. So many good stories donāt get covered because āit just doesnāt meet any of our pillars.ā WHO CARES? ITāS NEWSWORTHY OK?!?!?
Also, when I was hired, I was promised a work day once a week.
When I never hit one, but another reporter was given one weekly, Ryan Hazelwood (the ND) shouted me down while Olivia Dickinson (the AND) just played dumb.”
This person describes the overall newsroom environment as:
Unorganized, Negative, Toxic
Additional comments:
“The three people to look out for are the News Director, Ryan a Hazelwood, the AND, Olivia Dickinson, and the Assignment Ediotr, Elaine Sheridan.
Ryan Hazelwood is a corporate shill who cares more about kissing Scrippsā corporate higher upsā asses than treating people as humans.
Any concerns I would ever bring up to him or Olivia were never received with understanding or listening. He would immediately start arguing, trying to intimidate me.
Meanwhile, his minion Olivia Dickinson is good for nothing else but doing his dirty work.
I donāt think I ever heard her say one thing of substance that was not just the management party line. Itās a shame, because the AND before her really cared about people.
Elaine Sheridan the assignment Editor has been here forever is set in her ways and hates new, young people with a passion.
She will talk to you like youāre a child who knows nothing about anything, and send you demeaning and belittling angry all caps texts and emails if you dare question her.
She has no time to try to make friends with new people and goes out of their way to make their lives a living hell.
At one point, these three managers decided, for weekend reporters, they would need to pitch SIX DIFFERENT (basically Emmy-worthy) stories for the weekend by 2:30 PM ON THE WEDNESDAY BEFORE. Do you know how unreasonable that is?
The saving Grace about this place is all the other employees, specially Ben Lloyd the Digital Director, and Rob and Elizabeth, the main anchors. They get it. And they realize we are human.”