WTXL

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

The news director was extremely toxic. She is dismissive, yells at reporters and talks negatively about employees around their peers. She is not a leader and never trained or helped us improve. She posts on social media to make it look like she’s created a healthy newsroom environment, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Every MMJ is miserable, overworked and unappreciated. Very happy to be in a healthier newsroom.

It’s extremely unorganized. You will rarely go live and there are few opportunities for growth.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

I’ve been away from WTXL for a few years now and from what I hear from people I still talk to, it’s the same as it was when I left— horrible. Not enough people for the workload. When COVID hit, no one knew what to do, so I can give a little grace for that. But having to turn the amount of stories we were told to do, with at least one of them being a looklive pkg, was insane to me. I like to think every person was trying their best to make the best of that situation, but when I think back on my experience, I think it was more of “quantity over quality.” I was salary and being made to work 14 hour days because they knew they didn’t have to pay me OT. That’s when I realized I couldn’t stay anymore and started keeping track of all the OT hours I was working. I left halfway through a 2 year contract and never looked back. Most of the employees were great, but management? Not so much. I was even told in an email to be “crowd control” during protests… basically don’t let the reporter get attacked or something. Completely insane to ask anyone to do something like this who isn’t trained in being a security or body guard.

Some days are going to be really difficult. There's times when communication could be better, but if you want a station that isn't going to let you take shortcuts, and you want a place that will challenge you, this is a really good place to get your start.

An Overall Toxic Work Environment

The news director and management here is the reason why I left. The station got bought by a new company (Scripps), fired the old news director and brought one ten times worse. Vicki plays clear favorites, doesn't know how to lead a newsroom and talks to everyone like they're below her. A couple people after me have left, too. Everyone there talks about wanting to leave but is scared to break their contract. News director is also inexperienced and has terrible news judgement.

They had to hire an all-new staff to try to kick out the "toxic environment" but the workload and attitude toward reporters hasn't changed (content over quality). It seems things will never change there.

Sexual Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, An Overall Toxic Work Environment

Any one that has worked here would agree, it's just the tone of the station and has been for quiet some time.