“Connect the dots… and pay attention.” — What I so often tell myself
I hear tell today that weather lady Christina Anthony is leaving WWMT-TV Channel 3. Her departure is latest in a puzzling string of female reporters and broadcasters who have exited the television station, owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group in recent years.
I had suspicions about Sinclair a few years back when the company took over ownership of the Kalamazoo station. A friend told me the company was even more conservative than Fox News, which I found hard to believe.
Just after it took the reins at Channel 3, the co-anchors of the evening news broadcast read a statement warning viewers not to be taken in by fake news, as has become so common in these troubling times. The problem was that all of the Sinclair-owned outlets were forced to make exactly the same statements and a satirical video outed them for manufacturing the whole campaign.
Now comes a disturbing trend I’ve been watching over the last couple of months. In these modern times, we have become accustomed to the news being presented as pseudo entertainment and we as viewers have been invited to get to know the personalities that present it to us. They even take turns in reading their teleprompters.
But that development also has led to troublemakers like me noticing a pattern of female reporters and broadcasters leaving, perhaps not “to spend more time with their families.” To be sure, many of them have landed on their feet in the business elsewhere, but it seems unusual that so many women are jumping ship in Kalamazoo.
In just the last several months co-anchor Erica Mokay, Tricia McCauley, Lexi Petrovic, Christina Anthony and Lora Painter have left. Kate Siefert left earlier this year.
Kate Tillotson, who was the co-anchor who had to read that manufactured Sinclair warning, was fired in 2019 for violating company policy. When she departed, said, “Newschannel 3 is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. In the last couple years there have been some journalistic choices made that didn’t align with my journalistic values.”
That makes seven females who have parted ways with Newschannel 3 in the last several years, six since last January. It’s easy to notice because of the industry’s effort to get us to like those who deliver the news to us weekday evenings in our living rooms.
Many of us were shocked and some dismayed when Channel 8 abruptly dismissed co-anchor Suzanne Geha and never bothered to explain why. This, from an organization that prides itself on getting the truth to us — except when it involves one of them.
I have heard and seen many express the opinion they miss the good old days when people like Walter Cronkite simply told us what was happening, without any editorial embellishment. What has happened is the news actually is an entertainment program that lives and dies by advertising and ratings.
Meanwhile, I have no evidence that the Sinclair Broadcasting Co. is somehow making things intolerable for female employees, but following recent patterns and developments, I have to wonder just what’s going on.
Once again, thanks for commenting! We (I) quit watching WWMTV a few years ago. I join the ranks who bemoan the passing of Water Cronkite type news. I admit, I pick & choose which stations’ news broadcasts to watch. The pickins’ are getting mighty slim to hear news without having to sort through opinions & personalities.
Could it be they just left for greener pastures? Or perhaps profits were down and some higher paid folks had to go? As I recall Christina left before and turned into a Jersey Girl while broadcasting on the coast. Maybe damn rightwing women haters are not behind this action. Or perhaps Sinclair wants to be politically correct/diverse and had to get rid of some white folk for the sake of affirmative action?
Thanks for the laugh CINO, but they’re about as right wing as you can get, and they all had to take a pledge to work there, how American!
FWRF, Thanks darling. The pledge of allegiance to the USA? Please have a grand evening already.
Oh Conway ,you’re so flattering. I never New!
I have definitely noticed a right wing tilt when they cover a national political story with Sinclair reporters. I realize the local reporters have no choice in this right wing tilt. We just change channels when Sinclair does their thing.
They also lost/fired the weekend anchor, Hanna Knowles. I don’t know where she went but I hope on her feet.
We probably will never see network news like we saw growing up in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies again. Back then the network executives recognized that the costs of hiring anchors, reporters, camera operators, studio directors and producers for their news division meant the division would never be a profit center.
Eventually boards of directors started hearing from hearing from stockholders who read the annual reports and thought the losses (or barely breaking even) news division was a drag on profits. The companies’s decision was to move the news division into the entertainment division letting news compete for funding. That’s how we’ve arrived at the “happy talk” morning shows and news segments being shown on multiple shows on the same network.
As to WWMT that’s the perennial 2nd place station in the GR/Kzoo/BC market (#39 in the US, they are owned by Sinclair that currently owns 89 TV stations in all sizes of media markets in the US, losing on camera personalities isn’t unique to them but WWMT has had an unusually large number leave.
Kate Siefert who’s from Ohio left for Sinclair owned WSYX in Columbus OH (#32)
Lora Painter is now at KXTV Sacramento (#20) owned by Tegna . She’s a California native.
Lexi Petrovic a Seattle native landed a job at Sinclair owned KOMO in Seattle (#14)
Erica Mokay left for a reporter/weekend anchor job at a CBS owned station KDKA in Pittsburg (#23). Mokay grew in in the Pittsburgh suburbs.
Kate Tillotson is the Senior Director for Media Relations for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in DC.
Tricia McCauley is Director of Communications for Byron Center Schools
Christina Anthony is leaving to work in media relations for Kalamazoo County Health and Community Services.
Of the four who left, all went to bigger markets, all went back “home” and 2 left for Sinclair owned stations. Petrovic made the biggest jump from #39 market to #14.
Tillotson, McCauley and soon Anthony left broadcasting for corporate media jobs. WOTV, WZZM and WXMI have all some of their on air talent leave to jobs with regular hours and weekends off.
In the past couple of years on WWMTV, well since Sinclair took over at any rate. I have cut my viewing of the news on channel 3. For some reason Sinclair believes their propagandists talking about national right wing issues is what I want to see, when I want Andy Pepper to do local high school sports. Also, if you watch other stations it seems to me that the reporters and anchors truly like each other, and their banter seems to show that, but channel 3 people seem not to really care for the other people. The on mass leaving of many anchors and reporters from the station, it shows that WWMT is slowly rotting from the inside.
AMEN! The verbal scuffles between “new” morning anchor Kristen Aguirre and poor Kirk and Jeff are getting really bad. She needs to leave — she seems to be incapable of reading the teleprompter and frequently flubs words because she is guessing at the pronouncing and gets it wrong. She got completely lost in this morning’s story on the clown parades in Peru.
yes it seems more entertainment so as to avoid the news worthy information. Freedom of speech coated over with sugar on top. Fear of backlash? Walter kronkite where are you and all those brave and bold to keep facts and truth with out the tainting of opinion? Opinion can change but truth and facts do not. Opinion radio is not ashamed of being yellow. A valuable diamond has no yelow tone. Like a good diamond most people want clean news.