WDRB

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

My experience was absolutely terrible. My mental health was greatly affected and my health. I helped produced the wdrb in the morning show. During my time each main producer was in charge of 2 hours of producing content for the newscast. My shift ranged from 11:30 pm - 8:30 am or 1 am -9:30 am. The show was mainly chaotic and cliquey. The way show looked happy on television was not the reality behind the scenes. The EP was not a great communicator and gave out misleading information and lied to upper management to make them look better. News anchors are talented but not helpful or as nice as they are on tv. The news directors did not provide a true healthy work-life balance. Emails from production staff were passive aggressive and unneeded. The way training was set up during my time automatically set me up for failure. Majority of the time when I asked for feedback from the EP, I never received it but was questioned from upper management about certain things that wasn’t discussed with me from the EP. Often took blame for others mistakes. I made at least 5-6 thousand dollar less than the weekend producer. I went home often everyday depressed and sad. The morning team & management were not nice and I was one of the few minorities that worked there at the time. I would advise anyone who is a minority to run as fast as possible. I was told by my EP that we did not have any breaks or lunches on this shift, when I wanted to take a break.

Run away especially if you are a minority. You will only be a number. Not everyone at the station is bad. Unfortunate that some bad apples can mess up someone’s experience.

Overall a very good place to work. Not that much of an NPPA storytelling station, but plenty of opportunities to do longer pieces and get creative. They have drones which is cool.