KWWL

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

As soon as one person is out, someone’s schedule is being changed, and workloads are tripled. There is a cliche. If you’re young and single you should be fine. If not, be prepared to listen to how drunk one of them got with the group the night before.

It’s not a strong learning or development environment. Newer journalists are often expected to perform at a high level without adequate training, correction, or mentorship. Mistakes are more likely in this environment, yet constructive feedback and coaching are limited.

Staffing shortages contribute to high workloads and stress, but management practices further compound these issues. In particular, manager Lisa Burger frequently communicates in a condescending and dismissive manner. Feedback is often delivered without support or guidance, which discourages questions, learning, and professional growth.

Prospective employees are encouraged to read publicly available reviews from Lisa Burger’s previous stations to better understand recurring management patterns.

Employees are largely left to figure things out on their own rather than being intentionally developed. This is not a station I would recommend for early-career journalists or anyone seeking mentorship, support, or a healthy workplace culture.
Also don’t listen to Luke or Jacqueline.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

The station culture is dependent on what shift you are working. Dayside/Nightside are more professional and have top priority when it comes to staffing and coverage. Meanwhile morningside has a lack of direction. The people put in place as managers are merely holding a title. The station in general is very cliquey and catty. When you bring the issues up to managers about the toxic environment it is swept under the rug and no real change happens.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

All employees did was rant about horrible the managers were... rightfully so. Almost always, reporters had to MMJ their stories as the station refuses to hire more photographers. Reporters sometimes had to go live in dangerous areas BY THEMSELVES, which is unacceptable. Producers are treated like dirt and sometimes have to produce more than one show in a day like it's normal.

You should never pick a place to work and count down the days until your contract is up... I felt like I was in a legal prison working there, dying to get out as soon as I could. Their old news director, Shane Moreland, was HORRIBLE to his staff and went out of his way to make people feel like crap. When Shane left, people were thrilled to get a new news director. Personally, I liked Allison, but that's because I value the treatment of employees more than anything else, including growth. Was she a good leader? ...that's a no from me. It was sad when a few months in, people realized they'd actually prefer Shane over her, because of how terrible of a leader and decision-maker she was. She'd harp on minor details on a story/newscast without looking at the big picture a good majority of the time. Employees had to do more (write more stories/produce more newscasts) because Allison could hardly hire anyone. She has NO charisma to get a candidate excited to say YES to accepting a position and a 3-year contract. They'd come in for their interview and walk out thinking "no thanks," prolonging the added work current employees would have to pick up. If you're a reporter looking for a job out of college, I get why this station sounds enticing as a top 100 market, but you really should consider elsewhere, including KCRG, their main competitor. This is not the best market to grow and get feedback... you're basically left to fend for yourself.

Also, the parent company (Quincy) SUCKS, so avoid working at any of their stations. Their IT team is paranoid about possible viruses and blocks dozens of essential websites that make your job 10x harder (like Dropbox and Gmail... yes, GMAIL!). So enjoy trying to get your work done with ease. Also, enjoy their high deductible medical insurance that won't cover prescriptions that most other companies would. Avoid KWWL and Quincy like the plague.

This station was a really good starter market for me. I really loved the Cedar Valley and I met a lot of people in the community who I felt valued me and the stories I told. I made some friends for life here. The anchors are wonderful. The evening anchor, Abby, really cares about this community. Management changed A LOT from 2018 to 2019. I did have to fight for some feature stories I wanted to tell. I was given opportunities to try anchoring here, but Quincy’s contracts are long, and ultimately I decided I want to focus on reporting/mmjing in a bigger city.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

DO NOT WORK HERE. Yes, this is a great market to work in. You’re better off working at KCRG, the #1 station. Leadership at this station has gone down dramatically under the ND. If you want to sign a long contract and then count down miserably until you’re done.. work here.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

Attack culture style from management. You will get little to no feedback to improve as a reporter. There's no appreciation for employees here.

You are 100% better off working at the other two stations in the market and you'll get paid better.