Drinking The Kool-Aid in Cincy

The local NPR station in Cincy did a story about Scripps blowing up their newscasts and basically making the anchors a non-entity.

In talking about WCPO’s 4 PM newscast, anchored by Jasmine Styles, the NPR station writes, “Styles doesn't navigate viewers through the one-hour newscast introducing the stories — the traditional anchor role on TV for decades…” adding “…the only time Styles interacted with a live person was introducing meteorologist Brandon Spinner on a split screen in the first minute. Reporters Madeline Ottilie and Anna Azallion opened their taped reports by introducing themselves from Middletown and Northside, respectively.”

Scripps wants to expand the no-anchor news at WCPO to the weekend shows.

Jeff Brogan, WCPO General Manager, has taken a big gulp of the Scripps Kool-Aid, claiming that Scripps is not doing this as a cost-cutting move. "The change in format and technology gives our anchors more opportunities to work on stories," he says. The station works "constantly to make our newscasts and stories better. Our goal with the most recent changes is to have more journalists out in our community, and to give our anchors more opportunity to not just read the news, but also report it."

No word if his pants were on fire as he made that quote.