Scripps TV Adding More Recorded News Posted on February 2, 2024 at 12:13:05 PM by What The F*CK Scripps
Scrippscast Coming to Cleveland
We have reported for months about how Scripps stations in smaller markets have been running pre-recorded newscasts.
The company calls it "Scrippscast," and it is designed to save money.
TV news has been presented LIVE to viewers for decades. If a big story breaks, the station's news team can pivot and start covering the story. That can't happen when your newscast is pre-recorded.
I think back to September 11, 2001, all the networks were in their morning shows when word came in that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. All the networks dumped commercials and started covering the plane crash. Soon, we saw a second plane hit the World Trade Center, and we then knew our country was under attack.
Can you imagine if all those network shows were pre-recorded?
Local TV news often have stories that break during the newscasts. It could be a gas leak, a police shooting, or a highway closed due to a bad accident. If your newscast is recorded, you're doing the viewers a disservice.
When Scripps did this in small markets, people didn't think much of it.
But, sources tell FTVLive that this week at Scripps-owned WEWS in Cleveland, the staff was told that the weekday 11 pm and weekend newscasts are going to the taped “Scrippscast” format.
"Management had few answers for the employees who are clearly pissed about this," a station insider told FTVLive, adding, "How could a market this size have a taped 11pm newscast each night?"
I get that Scripps is trying to come up with a way to save money, but tossing Journalism aside to do it is just wrong.
Lowell Thomas hosted the first-ever regularly scheduled news broadcast on American television in March 1940.
There is a reason that news has been delivered live for the past 84 years.
The viewers in Cleveland deserve better.
As soon as WEWS starts running pre-recorded newscasts, if I were the competition, I would be running spot after spot, informing viewers that while they are staying up to watch the 11 PM newscast, the people at WEWS have already gone to bed.
This is a mistake, and it is one that it appears Scripps is going to repeat again and again at their stations. Replies: There have been no replies.
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