WVEC

Sexual Discrimination, An Overall Toxic Work Environment

Toxic, toxic, toxic. Its all managers. Most employees cry, if not at work, after work.

I'm not sure how i even survived 2.5 years. Most people quit fast, or if they're contracted they transfer to another tegna station for "a promotion" or "to be closer to family" which is a lie. They all just want to get out of this station. Managers are all toxic & manipulative and treat their employees bad. They've had to go with people just graduating college or people still in college because they can't keep people with experience. This is a top 50 market.

On anvhors, sales, and managers love their jobs.

On the flip side, technical staff, producers and reporters are miserable.

ALWAYS UNDERSTAFFED.

If yoy question anything the typical manager response is "thats just the way it is."

Production manager wants staff to be available 24/7 and tells them they need to request their normal days off if they actually "need" it off.
They choose the greenest producers to screw making them work all 3 different shifts in 1 week.
I've had employees cry to me because they were scheduled late night and then early morning back to back...which I'm pretty sure is illegal if its less than 8 hours between.

The news director trapped me during cut ins one day in the control room (my last 1.5 week working there before I moved on) and she screamed at me so hard she was shaking. It made me uncomfortable and bawl my eyes out...but I had to stay because we had cut ins. She did this on and off for an entire hour, I had to leave in the middle of my shift with how uncomfortable I was. No manager should act like that. Its truthfully disgusting.

It definitely trickles from corporate-- they literally just want to maximize money, and minimize pay to employees.

This station handled coronavirus AWFULLY. They had people who tested positive come to work, they would question you if you said you were waiting on results or needed to quarantine.

Many many employees who have worked here or still work there have had to get on depression/anxiety medication SOLELY from working at this station

Words id use to describe this station: Awful. Toxic. Trauma. Verbal abuse. Bullies. Inappropriate. Unprofessional.


Please don't take my warning lightly. I have worked at 7 tv stations and this is by far the worst & most toxic.
I suffered a great deal of trauma here and I am a strong person and q hard worker no matter what. Always gave 110% even when I was CRYING while directing. I've had so much mental clarity since I left. Do yourself a favor and pass this place up. Tegna being bought out will not change the awful management this place has.

It's hard to describe this shop because it was so day-to-day. More good than bad, definitely, but still problematic and worth sharing.

THE GOOD: The visual quality of the content they put out is fantastic, and they make sure to equip photogs and MMJs with the best stuff out there (gopros, dollys, shotgun mics, lighting kits, etc.). They were also very open to creative, new ideas for presenting your story. They encouraged long form journalism, like documentaries or series, and handled sweeps reasonably. TEGNA was an overall good parent company to be an employee of, too.

THE BAD: Managers often felt compelled to chase bogus news OR follow whatever WAVY, the #1 station in the market, is doing. So fixated on WAVY! The biggest issue I encountered in the newsroom, though, was a temperamental Assistant News Director. Her mood of the hour - even minute - would dictate YOUR day.

Also, about Doug Wieder, the former ND and now GM: be careful. Any employee from the last few years would tell you he preaches 'we're a family' until you do something he doesn't like. Then you're basically dead to him - several instances come to mind. It's a shame, and many people fell victim to his wrath. At least they've gone on to do better things anyways!