WWAY

The biggest joke of a news agency there has got to be in this whole county. Terrible management who couldn’t care less about anything, does not play to win, stacks shows with quantity over quality, whose only concern is ad revenue. They do not value their employees in any way, shape, or form, so once your contact is up they will push you out the door to hire someone for cheap instead of giving you a raise. Embarrassingly second in the market as they don’t care what kind of product is thrown on the air every night as long as we hit the breaks. Honestly embarrassing to say you even work here. In two years, the station was cyber hacked FIVE (5) times because the company would rather us get hacked and humiliate ourselves on air every day than pay for proper cyber security. The only positive aspect to this station is the people that work there.

The people who work within the news department are—for the most part— kind, hard-working, and willing to help if you’re new to the business. The owners (Morris Multimedia) and GM aren’t big into investing in the newsroom. It’s been hacked twice, with barely any changes invested in to keep it from happening again. It’s obvious the company values the sales department far more than News.
You’ll get a lot of good experience around good people. Most either stay for the good location or leave for much higher markets after their contracts are up.
WWAY is very firmly number 2 in the market, and the MMJs churn out 2-3 stories a day, sometimes with very few resources (the hack took out script writing apps, supers, graphics, and the teleprompter) just to attempt to keep up with the number one station.
But… if you’re interested in having creative control over your work and doing features/stories you want to do, this could be a good place for you. If you prove you can find good stories and make deadline, they’ll let you do more stories that might involve fun standups or creativity.
Pay has gone up since I left, so try for at least $30k. Wilmington’s cost of living is high and getting higher, but it’s a gorgeous place to live!

Sexual Discrimination, An Overall Toxic Work Environment

Often times men and women are treated very differently in the newsroom including regular insensitive comments made about women, including demeaning jokes and inappropriate comments about appearance. You'd be hard pressed to make it through a day without the news director yelling or cursing. He does not encourage growth of employees and is difficult to communicate with in general.

A large number of employees, including myself, left over the past two years simply because of the news director.