The SCUM OF SCRIPPS Sean McLaughlin Posted on March 9, 2024 at 11:51:30 PM by Restructure = Titanic
I don’t talk about other TV websites very often on FTVLive.
To be honest, I rarely read other TV news-related websites. My goal at FTVLive is to have better stories, bigger scoops, and outwork everyone else and let the chops fall where they may.
But I feel I need to say something about this.
The website TV News Check, which mostly just scrapes stories from other TV websites and links to those stories. It other words, TV News Check lets others do the work, and then they just add a link.
A few weeks ago, TVNC sent out a post saying that they were shutting down. It was a sob story about how their advertising was drying up and they just could no longer produce their news each day.
How much work is it to just link shit?
But anyway…
Just a couple of days later, they sent out an email saying that if 1500 people paid them $200 a year, they might bring back their page of links.
Many of you emailed FTVLive, feeling that this was a bit sketchy. You shut down one day and then beg for money to come back a day or two later.
Anyway, TV news check returned, and they are adding a new feature. They are having the recently fired Scripps Senior VP Sean McLaughlin write a column for them.
“This marks the debut of a new column, Reinventing the News, by veteran local TV news executive Sean McLaughlin,” TV News Check said in debuting the new column.
This seems a bit like having Jeffery Dahmer offering up cooking recipes.
Sean McLaughlin is the architect of Scripps’ “news initiative,” which cost many employees their jobs and turned Scripps from a respected news operation into the punchline of a joke.
The headline on his first column was, “Local TV News Faces An Iceberg In ’25. Here’s How To Stear Clear Of It”
One FTVLive reader saw the post and said, “Are you fucking kidding me? His changes to local news included taping newscasts and then getting fired for failing. I honestly thought I was reading an article from The Onion.”
First off, McLaughlin appears to be the first to hit the iceberg and was let go by Scripps.
Second, after seeing how Scripps imploded under this guy’s direction, I’m not sure anyone should be taking his advice on running TV news.
But, looking at the big picture, I think TV News Check and Sean McLaughlin might be a perfect fit together.
Maybe he can help them beg for more money to read links to other people’s work.
Next week, Bill Cosby joins TVNC to offer up a dating advice column.