Tegna EP is Leaving in Atlanta

WXIA Executive Producer Erin Peterson is leaving the Tegna station in December.

Here’s the internal email sent out by Assistant News Director Kristie Anderson. It was obtained by FTVLive.

From: Anderson, Kristine
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 4:28 PM
To: Wxia-News
Subject: Erin Peterson embarking on new journey

 How much amazing work can you cram into 8 years? The answer is a whole lot! After nearly a decade with 11Alive and TEGNA, Erin Peterson is getting ready to embark on a new journey. As you all know, Erin leads our special projects team, and before that she was the driving force behind TEGNA’s national Atticus docuseries. She built those teams around some of the most engaging, creative, dynamic, and powerful storytellers in this business and created a culture of highlighting the strengths of everyone around her.  Her work with both has helped change local and federal laws, saved lives, and connected people with resources they desperately need.

 But Erin’s impact goes far beyond even that. She and Ciara and Rebecca were our Data Queens during the pandemic, helping us track cases in Georgia and the progress in getting vaccines to people. She was the one leading our team as we did a deep dive into voter tallies in 2020 amid false accusations of voter fraud. She’s one of our newsroom champions for Voices for Equality, putting together stories and specials throughout the year. She also helped organize not one, but TWO youth town halls this year with Neima. And whenever anything big happens, Erin is in the middle of it, organizing our coverage when Roe v. Wade was overturned, helping us track every development as it unfolds in the Fulton Co. election interference case, and running to help other TEGNA stations as hurricanes hit.

 Over the course of her time here, she’s earned a heap of awards, including a Dupont, three National Murrow awards, two Service to America awards, a Cronkite award, five Gracies, and 27 Emmy awards (and also introduced our team to Emmy bingo!).  But if you know Erin, you know the accolades are not what drive her. She just wants to do good journalism and tell a story you’re going to remember.  She’s incredibly passionate and caring, and her office is a revolving door of people stopping by to talk through pitches or a problem, brainstorm big ideas, vent, or simply have someone hear them out.  She also spends a tremendous amount of her time mentoring students and fellow journalists. We regularly have Erin act as the closer when we bring in candidates because of how passionately she advocates for this station. She often says 11Alive feels like home, and she’s a big part of why so many of us feel the same. I’m excited to see what’s next for her, but I know I speak for the station as a whole when I say we’re gonna miss the heck out of her. So, soak up the time Erin has left here. Her last day will be December 15th.

Kristie Anderson
Assistant News Director