Station's Ratings
News Dirctors
The newsroom is full of talented, hard working journalist. There's no sense of just phoning it in or slapping it together, everyone works very hard to bring the best stories possible to air. This has got to be one of the strongest, most competitive markets in the 20's and if you're coming from a smaller market you'll notice the difference right away. There's room for career-minded producers and desk people to get hired, go to work, and benefit from working with some really top talent I have a tremendous amount of respect for the reporters I worked with; with class and tact they always chased sound, covered what is rather than what's thought to be, and then wrote a great script. I'm proud of my time there, wish I was there longer, and would immediately without hesitation accept another job, or a similar position, at WSMV or elsewhere.
Photographer Job details
Yearly salary
Contract1 year
Paired with a photogN/A
Station market rank#2
Dan Fabrizio
Dan’s a good guy.
An Overall Toxic Work Environment
Please see my description.
The Chief Photographer’s back-up set of gear was better than my thrown together daily driver. He doesn’t shoot with that every day, it’s his “B” camera body. There were two Assignment Editors daily on the weekends and as the weekend crew we would come in and nothing would be set up. At 2:30pm we would be picking a story and looking for interviews to try to have something ready by five. The weekend producer was prone to shrieking. Twice I heard co-workers accuse other co-workers of behavior in a way that could bring on a civil lawsuit. I wouldn’t speak well of WSMV. People who want to hold others accountable, need to be aware of their own responsibilities and certain liabilities in doing so.
Producer Job details
Yearly salary
Contract8 months
Paired with a photogN/A
Station market rank
An Overall Toxic Work Environment
The station has a lifestyle show that looks like it would be fun to work for on the outside but once you start working there you realize how unorganized it is. The creative services director and creative services manager are over the show and know nothing about the day to day work that goes into putting on the hour lifestyle show. They only come around when they have something negative to say. The place is very understaffed, needs new leadership and doesn’t value employees. There are better places to work, this place is a sinking ship. Lifestyle TV is supposed to be fun but this place sucks the fun out of it.
Web Producer Job details
Yearly salary
Contract2 years
Paired with a photogN/A
Station market rank#3
Mitch Jacob
Unfriendly
An Overall Toxic Work Environment
Worked for two managements during my two years there, the station is complete garbage. Low morale, high turnover, bad publicity, constant changes in on-air style, staff schedules, and editorial judgment. Constantly short staffed or working against itself in some way. Constantly late to breaking news. Negative attitudes across the newsroom, high brow talent who carry themselves as such. Just overall bad, and not getting better, only getting worse. News director is extremely passive aggressive and singles out people he doesn’t like. Station is hungry for ratings and can’t seem to pull itself out of third place so it constantly reinvents itself and alienates what viewers it has left.
Avoid this and any other Meredith Television station like the plague, you have better options. You won’t be appreciated and you will be sorry to work here if you do.
Web Producer Job details
Yearly salary
ContractNo
Paired with a photogN/A
Station market rankbetween 2-3
Mitch Jacob
He knows exactly what we need in order to succeed. Sometimes hard to read and standoffish, but overall supportive of his team.
The station is on the rebound after several years of bad management and bad decisions. New management at the station is breathing new life into the stale product including doing more community events, more investigative consumer action stories, and making cosmetic changes like a new set and graphics. The station struggles with being first to breaking news and struggles with overall organization. While ratings have improved with new management and better decision making, the market is extremely competitive and no one station is doing better than the other in the demographics. There seems to be more chiefs than Indians and different ideas on how things should be. Overall, the station is a decent place to work and the newsroom is a nice albeit dysfunctional family. They need to get better organized in managing news assignments and expectations, and replace a few bad or lazy eggs to totally get back on track to greatness, however.
Reporter Job details
Yearly salary
Contract2 years, 8 months
Paired with a photogN/A
Station market rank#3
Denise Eck was who I worked for. She was fired in Feb.
She acted like she was on your side, but continuously put women down for their looks and weight. She was the GM's
Sexual Discrimination, An Overall Toxic Work Environment
Women were told to wear fake eyelashes and darken their eyebrows. The news director also body shamed women who were not tiny and promoted women with far less experience if they were "hotter"
They have serveral lawsuits pending against them. I've heard mixed opinions about new management, but a lot of the damage has already been done.
