A former longtime TV news person gives us their take on what is happening and what will happen to this business.

“Waited a while to write this, trying to understand the weekly exodus of people from the TV news business that you write about.

On the one hand, it's good to see some people leave TV news. It's obvious from their social media pages that they're in TV news for all the wrong reasons. This note is not to them, and don't let the door hit your backside as you exit.

On the other hand, I'm sorry to see good people getting fed up with their journalism jobs.

Long hours away from family with no financial or physical encouragement from management is a fact of life with TV. It always has been. When I first got into television news back in the early 70's, the business was exciting. Personally, I wanted to learn as much as I could, so I gave the free hours with no overtime, I got up in the middle of the night if I learned of a spot news situation somewhere. I would race to the station, grab a camera and be out the door before those in charge knew I was there. Extra hours every day. I was willing to go the extra mile to make sure something was covered (A) because I wanted to beat the pants off the competition, and (B) it felt good being the eyes and ears for people wanting to know what caused the blue lights at the intersection. I never said anything about getting paid extra for doing it and I have never regretted it.

I tell that to people nowadays and the first thing they say is, 'there's no way I'm doing that and not getting paid.'

News directors encourage that 'free spirit,' but corporate clamps down on the overtime. You can't pay somebody to be enthusiastic when there's no incentive from upstairs. The bigger the TV station owner, the less financial encouragement to 'give your all.'

TV journalism also got blindsided by the 'fake news' crowd. While news gatherers were guarding the front door of Edward R. Murrow journalism, the 'fake news' crowd snuck in the back door, planted a few stink bombs, then snuck back outside to climb the hill and watch the fallout. It forever changed the way we gather news. And it's gonna get worse.

TV news is changing as fast as analog did to digital in '09. In 10 years, what we know as journalism is going to become so compartmentalized that we'll file stories from the field into a server via phone or computer, and reporters probably won't ever set foot into the station (COVID taught us how to do that and stations learned a valuable financial lesson). In the long term, it won't require a lot of hard legwork, which is what makes TV attractive to younger reporters and photogs. In the long term, that will result in high turnover and shorter employments at stations.

In my opinion, today's TV news is the opposite of its past. May it rest in peace.”