A Thanksgiving Message from Tegna's CEO

On Thanksgiving Day, many Tegna employees were either working or trying to figure out what they would do now that the company had laid them off.

Many Tegna staffers have a few more weeks on the job before they are officially kicked to the curb.

But, that did stop new Tegna CEO Mike Steib from sending out an email from the staff as he enjoyed the holiday with family.

Team,

I'm in Nashville today, getting ready for a big Thanksgiving dinner with three generations of Kemp's family, and I just wanted to take a moment to share my gratitude. Every day we get to contribute to local journalism that helps our communities and our democracy flourish, doing our part to make the world a better place. It's rare to find a career that can contribute to such an important mission, and I'm really grateful for it.

I'm also grateful for each of your. I'm 100 days in as your CEO, and so far I have been blown away by the creativity, passion, and willingness to lean into difficult changes that I have heard in every station and town hall. The challenges that local news is facing is no secret, but with this team, I believe strongly that we will change the trajectory and create a sustainable future for local news. 

Finally, I'm excited for what is ahead. The OKR works we are doing right now to better utilize technology, shared resources, and best practices in news, sales, and marketing is already revealing opportunities to deliver higher quality work more efficiently than before. This makes it possible for us to invest in our future and *win in streaming*, reclaiming the audience that left traditional television over the last decade and expanding to new audiences in the future. 

Teddy Roosevelt once said, "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing". This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful to be sharing that prize with all of you. 

Mike

One Tegna employee said, “Haven’t seen someone this tone deaf since I watched the last American Idol audition.”

Another Tegna insider writes to FTVLive, “Nothing warms the heart like a holiday message from a CEO using management-speak like OKR's - right after you've whacked all your local station's marketing departments and signaled that Production is next - with more cuts to follow.”