WFXL

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

The News Director is Jenna Huff, who works out of the station hub in Macon. Employees see her roughly once per quarter and have conference calls with her roughly once per month, if not less. Jenna cared very little about the day-to-day operation and would direct any problems in the station to the News Manager, Kerri. Staff in the "Albany bureau," for lack of a better description, report to News Manager Kerri Copello. Kerri has little, if any, respect for her employees and the work they do. She has no experience as a leader and is incredibly unqualified to be in charge of a news operation or employees. She is quick to point fingers at her employees openly in front of other employees, even when she is fully in the wrong, which usually stems from Kerri's inability to communicate clearly or her lack of focus. She never takes responsibility for her own actions or her own mistakes. It's always the news team's fault. When her employees do make mistakes (which everybody does every so often), she once again openly calls them out in front of other employees, which drives morale amongst the news team into the ground. Kerri holds personal grudges against her subordinates and does not treat them fairly. When viewers throw negative comments at reporters, Kerri does little to stand up for her employees. She takes pleasure in watching her employees fail and does nothing to support them. Kerri's passion is meteorology, so she has very little experience in a news setting. With MMJs coming straight out of college, she has very little to offer them in regard to bettering their news product to help them grow as journalists. It's up to coworkers to critique, edit, train, and support each other. They are on their own. If anybody has problems with editing in Avid, Kerri wouldn't be able to help because she is the only person in the station allowed to continue using Edius, even after the station fully switched over to Avid. Coworkers were forced to train each other on the new editing software after Kerri returned from a full training session with no useable information to guide the MMJs. Kerri was very rarely ever in the station during my time at WFXL, especially whenever she was needed. She would frequently disappear in the nicest news car and not be seen for hours at a time. This left MMJs wondering if their package scripts were approved or left them not knowing what stories they'd be covering for the day, let alone if breaking news happened when she was away. Because of WFXL's position as a distant second place in the market, Kerri would get 99% of breaking news stories from the top station in the market. This had reporters calling on crime scenes or going to house fires or robberies hours, if not days, after the top station broke the news. She once asked me to download the other station's mobile app so I could see their breaking news push alerts and send an MMJ to the scene when she wasn’t in the office.

I was fortunate enough to have my position abruptly eliminated by Sinclair Broadcasting roughly halfway through my two-year contract, along with the newscast director, who had been there for decades. That left a total of 3 MMJs, the web director, and Kerri working in the bureau. I felt bad leaving my friends and coworkers behind in that environment and had a sense of survivor’s guilt.

Getting out of bed and going into work everyday was difficult and depressing. A passion for producing quality news was rarely found because of Kerri, making the employees just want to put their eight hours in and get out as fast as possible, counting down how many days are left in their contracts.

When problems do arise between Kerri or Jenna, the station/HR manager does not stand up for the employees. The GM, who is hubbed at WACH in South Carolina (5 hours away), is understanding and supports the staff better than anybody working in the Albany bureau. Whenever I had issues, I felt like the GM was the best person to talk to about things I saw in the station.

The staff was paid well compared to other stations in the market, but the higher pay wasn't worth the mental exhaustion of working in that environment.

WFXL has always struggled going up against a legacy station, WALB. But that has gotten worse since it was bought by Sinclair and now it has become a satellite station. Many people were laid off in 2016 and now the only newscast (10 p.m. weekdays) is anchored from Macon at the studios of the Sinclair station there. The station has three or four reporters covering a large geographical area. I had a good amount of live shots but that was several years ago...now, you probably won't get any or very little live shot experience. Also, years ago, it was great because nearly all reporters at least had a chance to fill-in anchor. Not a station I would recommend unless things change.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

No weekend show, so you automatically get the weekends off. No photographers. Hardly go live in the field. Always live in the station. Satellite station as well