WAY TO GO SCRIPPS (circling the drain) Posted on March 27, 2024 at 11:11:54 AM by FTVLIVE
While Scripps has kicked veteran Journalists out the door at their stations to help save money, it showed with a major breaking news story.
A few FTVLive readers told us what they saw watching the coverage from the Baltimore stations covering the Francis Scott Key bridge disaster.
Here is what they reported to FTVLive about their viewing.
Anews vet sent this email:
The Francis Scott Key Bridge was hit by a container ship early Tuesday morning.
Police believe at least 20 cars and trucks fell into the water when the bridge collapsed.
At 4:30 a.m. WJZ, WBAL, WBFF and WBAL Radio are in wall-to-wall coverage.
WMAR mentioned the bridge collapsed then returned to a recorded Scripps ‘news initiative’ tape of Lupus treatments in Sedona, Arizona.
WMAR’s morning news starts at 5:00 a.m. They did lead with the bridge.
Where was WMAR when the audience expected coverage?
WJZ dropped all commercials. WBAL finally followed suit. WBFF and WMAR ran breaks.
This comes from another journalist that tuned in:
I'm in Richmond with friends (who work) in the Baltimore area, so I wanted to catch up on the story.
At 7:30, Hearst's WBAL (NBC) was in full crisis mode. In the main studio, veteran anchors leading the coverage, and a lot of solid breaking information. I stayed for an hour before I wanted another angle.
At 8:25, I switched streams to Scripps' WMAR (ABC). They were doing a weather segment. And not in a way that they were explaining what the folks dumped into the Patapsco River were dealing with, but happy-talking about how chilly it was in the south Baltimore suburbs. They then cut to the Good Morning Baltimore studio with two overmatched anchors fumbling to catch up with the story. There were no graphics at all.
At 8:32, I gave up and went to WJZ (CBS News Baltimore/O&O) who are currently doing a solid job explaining the impact to the region, then what happened on the ship, then reporting on the rescue with a series of expert and government interviews. CBS News at its professional best.
In short, Scripps' greed and short-sightedness left it unable to adequately cover the biggest story in Baltimore in years.
Anyone who went to WMAR when I did probably didn't stay long.
Another viewer:
While flipping channels and watching the local coverage of the bridge collapse, WMAR (Scripps) cut out of news around 10:30am to go to a 2022 episode of People’s Puzzler. No wonder they’re in last place.
WBAL and WJZ are rocking the coverage continuing without commercials.
Another viewer who tuned into WMAR:
Scripps' WMAR looks like a minor league team trying to play in the big leagues. Their coverage, or lack thereof, on the bridge story is awful.
I watched it for just 15 minutes before I could not take it anymore and switched to WBAL.
It should be pointed out that WMAR has been the dog station in Baltimore, even when Scripps was considered a good company.
From the emails that came into FTVLive, it sounds like they are even worse now. Replies: