WDAY

Much has changed since COVID. There are a lot of good and odd things that set this shop apart from your typical small market station. Long story short, I can safely tell you, this is a solid place to get your start in this business. But it has some very unique quirks.

This station still has many old dogs who really know what they are doing. Many of them either teach or taught media writing/broadcast at the local universities, so there are natural teachers here who will make you better at whatever newsroom role you enter. A few, um, "big" personalities here and there, but the team is overall fine. Many of the more toxic employees have left the company. It's also "home of the Bison" which is great if you are doing sports. They broadcast a lot of high school sports tournaments as well.

There are many things going on in the Fargo DMA that will make your news coverage experience run across all the classic beats. Politics, severe weather, features, major events, court, breaking, etc. You will have some slow days, but there is always something for the reporters to cover. Producers are kept very busy. Very busy. I'll explain later.

If you are looking for a stepping stone to get into news, this is a fine place to do so. If you are looking to settle down in the area, be ready for a long haul to whatever "permanent" position you are seeking, unless you are coming in from a larger market with lots of experience. It is possible to move up here, but it will take time. There are your typical problems you would deal with in any newsroom: occasional lack of communication, growing pains with new tech (the Overdrive transition was rough but they got it somewhat handled now), workload, and equipment malfunctioning or breaking. They are currently transitioning to new gear and they usually fix stuff that breaks.

Two big warnings you need to be aware of:

Yes, this station is locally owned. Cue monkey paw: It is owned by the local newspaper, Forum of Fargo-Moorhead (or, Inforum). From a producing and reporting end, this has its upsides, since any content the paper posts, the TV station can use. Vice versa. In theory, the two newsrooms should work together in harmony and just curbstomp the region in terms of news coverage. But they do not exactly work in harmony. Some bad blood exists between the two newsrooms. Paper reporters will often keep stories to themselves and not tell the TV side about it until they publish the story. They "scoop" the TV side a lot, working against their own co-workers.

They combined websites a few years ago and put it behind a paywall. This means when any TV story gets posted online, it is put behind a $9.99 monthly subscription with all the other print stories. So like, viewers can watch your story for free on TV, but they need to pay to watch it online... If a TV reporter has the same story as a newspaper reporter, the newspaper reporter is usually the only person who gets a byline on the website article, shoving the video TV version of the story to the lower half of the article, sometimes at the bottom. The company puts the newspaper team above the TV team every step of the way — in terms of news coverage, credit, and especially in terms of budgeting. As it turns out, the TV side makes more profit than the print side (who would have thought) and those budgets are frequently used for the print side. The newspaper company has done little to reconcile this divisive disconnect. TV has to fight them tooth and nail multiple times a week on various issues that keep coming up. It's wild. I don't know of another local news shop that deals with this.

The other big warning: WDAY, like every station up and down the market ladder in the last few years, keeps adding local news shows to save money from buying syndicated programing. It's just the direction the entire biz is taking. This continually adds on to the work load for producers, meteorologists and anchors. Anchors do produce by the way. On top of that, this station got smacked hard by the COVID era hiring crisis. Like all small markets, they're having a hard time getting to the amount of photographers/reporters they had years ago. Management does what they can to hire new people, but the hiring pool is tough. This can make it tough on reporters who want to spend more time on investigative stories. Their workload increases too.

So yeah, these are things to take into account if you do work here. These are the problems you may experience outside of the typical issues you see at any other job. Scheduling is all over the place, but they can be reasonable about PTO requests. Winters weather live shots can be brutal, so bundle up. As of my departure, the crew working there consists of mostly great people. As of my writing, most of those great people are still there.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

WDAY was by far the most toxic place I've ever worked in my life. The sports director Dom Izzo is a verbally abusive ***hole who was chased numerous people out of the industry. He nitpicks everything, pokes fun at other on-air talent and somehow is able to keep his job despite multiple offenses with this conduct.

Most if not all the on-air talent who I worked with at WDAY has left the news industry after working within such a toxic environment. The newsroom is not a very welcoming place for a new journalist trying to begin their career and learn/develop.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

The news director is so fake. He’ll lure you in by thinking he cares about you as a person, but really he only cares about your ability to do a job. Make sure you don’t sign a contract with this man, he will flip out at you if you break it early, and you have to pay a hefty fine. Also, when I got moved to the overnight shift, my assistant news director, who was also executive producer of the morning show, constantly looked over us producers’ shoulders, and made us redo entire blocks if he didn’t like the way they were stacked. It felt like he was a whip-cracking dictator with no remorse. He also took the show in a direction that wasn’t beneficial for producers or production staff by adding a third anchor, which is not feasible with the set I had to work with, which resulted in the show looking like garbage. Overall, I wish I could get those 3 years of my life back.

The people I worked with were great, and I will miss them. The market is also a great starter market, but if you’re thinking about coming to WDAY, think twice. The grass may be greener on the other side.

Sexual Discrimination, An Overall Toxic Work Environment

Current station management is extremely toxic. Do not let the family owned and number 1 station fool you! Yes, there are some hard working and caring people who work here, but many of those people are beneath the radar of the management’s eyes. If you are a guy you better suck up to managment hard core or else you will just be a place holder until the end of your contract. If you are a female get ready to show some legs to the bosses! Current station managment prides itself on “TV female prostitution” promotes and gives females what they want if and ONLY if they look the part in managment’s Eyes! Seriously if you want to sell yourself as “a prostitute” without being one then work here. If you pride yourself as a person of integrity without looks then please look the other way and do not waste your time here. They need to do a full sweep of station management and start fresh again in order to move forward. And again, if your a guy or a somewhat attractive female you just are along for the ride. Only women that are victory secret qualified get the advancements and it shows to the public eye and reputation of the station.

Needs an extreme managment and ethical overhaul.

Sexual Discrimination, An Overall Toxic Work Environment

The station is pretty strict about the employees' appearances, especially pertaining to the women. Whether on air or off air, it was not uncommon for people in power to make comments about people's clothing in front of large groups of people without pulling them aside. It often felt like voicing concerns and opinions would not result in any change, which was pretty frustrating. There was not a lot of grace for mistakes, there was almost zero learning curve. More than once, employees were fired without much indication that anything was wrong in the first place...people were let go without being given any notice or proper training to improve. I was usually treated pretty well, but I noticed some other employees being picked on or given far less credit than they deserved. I can recall quite a few moments where reporters would pitch great ideas, only to have their pitches passed on to other reporters who seemed to receive more opportunities without working hard or keeping their egos in check. This contributed to some competition between employees, and didn't make for a great team-oriented environment. Some employees were given ample opportunity for training, promos, and perks, while others were often ignored or required to work during training sessions/meetings with consultants. The largest problem, however, was a lack of transparency. A lot of lies were spread, and it left a lot of employees feeling anxious and uncertain about their future with the station. There was never a solid stream of feedback, and a lot of ideas were shot down when they could have moved the station forward. Many employees would attribute the toxic environment to Forum Communications' owner and GM rather than the news director--it was obvious that the news director was not able to answer some of the questions and concerns voiced by employees. Overall, the higher-ups in the company would not respond to concerns, shut down employee suggestions, and made drastic decisions with minimal explanation.

If you're a woman, expect to be told how to wear your hair, makeup, etc (although this seems pretty standard with a lot of stations). Be prepared to stand up for yourself when it comes to overtime.

The coverage is very saturated in specific portions of the viewing area that upsets viewers and does not serve them the content they deserve.

There are some VERY good, kind, loyal, hard-working people who work at this station, but the environment can often pit employees against each other and put workers in a tough spot.

Every station has its ups and downs, but I would NOT recommend it to any of my friends working in TV.

Sexual Discrimination, An Overall Toxic Work Environment

Favoritism based on your looks. If your a beautiful female in the news directors eyes then you will get anything you want. If you are just so so, then you are just along for the ride until the end of your contract with no real advancement. Also news director will pick what type of hair style he likes for you after you start.

Unless you like playing mind games with the station managment then you may want to pick a different station.

Everyone is also hourly not salary, unless you are in managment.