KCAU

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

The assistant news director, Andy Bottger, is bitter and biased. He won’t approve stories he thinks “will create conflict” or “ruin relationships.” He constantly belittles newbie journalist and flaunts how smart and experienced he is. He’s burnt out and wants everyone else to feel miserable. Bottger and Delgado are running that place straight into the ground. Ps don’t ever bother going to HR. She will tell everyone your private conversations and is only there to protect management. She also yells at people like they’re her kids. The three of them should be fire. Pss… the GM has a smiling picture with a “TRUMP 2020” hat that plays in rotation in the conference room. A very unbiased newsroom of course!!

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

Racial Discrimination, An Overall Toxic Work Environment

An all-star african-american camera operator was fired because he was "late 15 minutes on the morning show twice in the last two months" after receiving no warnings. This was after nearly every other staff member was constantly late, and got numerous warnings. No warnings or markups on the employees record, yet he was fired the week after the second african-american worker was hired, so they could still mark the box for having a 'diverse workplace'.

This is an overall toxic station. I started at 26,000 as a reporter and a weekend meteorologist. Dan Delgado came into the station as the new News Director after the previous News Director was fired for passing out drunk in front of the local movie theater. Dan proceeded to push his authoritarian style, and our main anchor, chief meteorologist, and sports director all left within a manner of months of him joining the staff. I wish I joined them at the time, because I was then promoted to morning meteorologist, after covering for the chief for two months. After being promoted, there was absolutely no change in my pay, and I continued to work on the mornings for the next 7 months. Dan would continue to call me and other workers that he did not like into his office consistently, and I was threatened to be fired (although there were no alternative options for him) constantly. It got so bad, that people I worked with started counting the amount of times we would be threatened to be fired in a week, and it completely lost all of it's scary-factor after the first three times or so. This place is a joke, and only a handful of people I have worked with there have actually completed their contracts. It was standard at KCAU to break your contract early because of all of the illegal activities and immoral actions that were used behind the scenes. The station has been severely understaffed since I arrived there, and it only got worse in my two years of working there. When I attempted to contact our local HR rep about illegal activities, she doesn't take action other than immediately telling the ND what you said, which leads to further unfair treatment. Corporate HR is no better, as I sent dozens of emails and voicemails to them over my time there, to no response. Since I have left, I have also received screenshots showing KCAU slandering my name in facebook messages to viewers. On top of all of this, there is nothing to do in Sioux City. It is an industrial area with nothing but factories, and surrounding the main city, there is only farmland for as far as the eye can see. It's a great city if all you eat is fast food. If you can avoid working for KCAU, I would highly suggest it, as you will only find yourself wanting out after a few months of being berated constantly, even if great work was the consistent output.

The job hiring experience I have gone through with KCAU is an actual and true experience. Dan Delgado and their assistant news director (Andrew Bottger) accused me, a job candidate of declining an entry-level news producer position due to financial compensation in November 2017 under the former news director (Jim Parker) at KCAU. I did applied for a news producer position and given a first-round telephone interview in November 2017, but there was no verbal job offer or written job offer at all from KCAU. I did not receive anything from KCAU at all and Andrew neither interviewed me for the position nor the former news director never mentioned that Andrew was present in the interview. The former news director said that he does not allow entry-level news producers to be news reporters or MMJs saying "I don't think it will happen" when informing him about my career aspirations. After the interview, he told me was still interviewing other candidates, and will get back to other candidates for the next step in the hiring process. I sent the station a follow-up/thank you note for the phone interview the next day and heard nothing from them. Even on the previous Nexstar career's website, the job status was "application received" or "applied" and the job status never changed on the website.

Dan and Andrew gang up on me and told me you cannot apply and be consider for any news jobs, including another news producer position I recently applied to at KCAU because of something that never even happened. They also made false statements about me. It is already significantly very difficult for job candidates and college graduates like myself to find employment in this industry. KCAU has permanently blacklisted me for television news jobs at their station for something that I neither did nor haven't even occurred.

KCAU has permanently blacklisted me, an entry-level job candidate for television news jobs at their station for something that I neither did nor haven't even occurred. For job candidates applying to KCAU or any other starter market station (or even a medium or large market station), do your research, keep all correspondences of the conversations you had with news directors, assistant news directors, executive producers, and all newsroom management personnel, get everything in writing, especially job offers. Defend yourself and stand your ground, if you come across a television news station, a news director, or any newsroom management personnel falsely accusing you, the job candidate of something that you never did and/or never even happened.