Yesterday, FTVLive was the FIRST (by hours) to tell you that Tegna was telling their employees that they were going to be furloughed.

The General Managers at Tegna stations all scheduled conference calls with their staff at the same time and then the GM’s read off a script that was provided by corporate.

FTVLive was texting and emailing with a number of Tegna employees as the furloughs were being announced and it was like I was listening to people sitting in the exact same meeting, even though that were all over the country at different stations.

“I can tell my GM is reading a script, it sounds nothing like how he talks or interacts,” said one Tegna employee in an email.

“This reminds me of the Sinclair Anchors reading the Trump talking points,” said another Tegna staffer.

The one thing that all GM’s stressed to the staff was not to talk about the furloughs on social media or tell anyone.

“They didn’t want it out there and they surely did not want anyone leaking it to FTVLive,” said one employee. The Tegna GM’s talking points were, “complaining about one week of lost pay would be insensitive to viewers.”

Yet, as companies have been cutting back their workforce and viewers have been laid off or had their jobs eliminated, the news media has been covering the story. But, when furloughs are happening at their company, Tegna is asking their employees to keep it quiet.

So much for transparency at Tegna.

At least one TV newsie thinks he has seen this movie before: