After 4 decades of reporting from the streets of Baltimore, WBAL’s Jayne Miller is ready to try something else.

Miller is known as one of the best Reporters in B-More is leaving the station and she intends to get involved in political causes.

In taking to the Baltimore Banner, Miller is concerned about the state of TV news right now.

“I think that journalists and media have to figure out how to operate in this climate in this country. There’s so much being said and written about what 2024 might look like, and I just think that there has to be some really serious thinking about, “What is the role of journalism?” The problem is that institution has been so weakened. And we have huge areas in the country that have no local news, have very little coverage, and therefore it’s left to a couple of people on a social media page or whatever to go to the local council meeting or whatever. This is a real crisis, that an institution as important as a free press has been so weakened.

The last four years — there’s no question — have changed the discourse in this country dramatically. And you amplify that with social media. But I think that across the country, a daily challenge in journalism is to fend off misinformation and to try to convey information that is accurate, to the best of your ability, and research, without it being diverted and swamped by misinformation campaigns. It’s a real challenge.”

Miller got a hit with a bad case of COVID and says that had she known what was coming, she might have stepped down when her contract came up, just before the pandemic hit.

“Actually, this was a two-year plan. I was thinking about retiring early in 2020. We have contracts, and I was coming up on the conclusion of a contract, expiring in July of 2020. This was pre-COVID; I was really seriously thinking about it. And the company said, “Oh, let’s give it another two years.” Now, I had no idea what was coming. And then, I mean, I haven’t worked as hard in 30 years [as I did] covering the pandemic, because it was a steep learning curve. [Having to learn about] virology, I’ve gotten to know dozens of people very well that I never had really much dealings with before. But I think it was also the political side of ... you could see what was happening with the resistance to this by the Trump administration. We’ll never know how that set us on this course to where we are today. We’re now, what, two and a half years into this, and our positivity rate’s almost 9%. We have lots of people sick. I had an appointment on Tuesday with the long COVID clinic at Hopkins, and the doctor said we’re now seeing it’s a 12- to 18-month course with people who have longer running symptoms of COVID and effects.”

Losing Jayne Miller is another big blow to TV news.