Christy Moreno, incoming KUSA news director
Recently named KUSA news director Christy Moreno, who succeeds Patti Dennis after a winning 18-year run, will assusme her new duties Jan. 12. “It’s a very big jump” , she acknowledged.
At WBIR she oversaw a newsroom of 65 people; at KUSA she’ll run a newsroom of just over 100. In Knoxville, they’ve been busy covering a school bus accident this week. In Denver, breaking news regularly rises to national attention. But throughout the interviewing process, Moreno said, there were “so many similarities” between the Knoxville and Denver news outlets. “We both have extra-strong brands, we do 53 hours of news per week. At every turn, it was “we do the same thing.””
Moreno, 41, from Chickasha, OK, speaks with undisguised awe of her predecessor/mentor in the Denver job. “Those are impossible shoes to fill but I can’t think of a more incredible journalist to learn from. There’s no replacing Patti Dennis, you just don’t.” (In fact, Dennis has made it clear she intends to be in the control room for breaking news, overseeing the coverage. Moreno is undaunted.)
“There’s no bigger station than 9News. We often watch their pieces in morning meetings. Patti and I have known each other 2½ years,” through Gannett conferences. “We hit it off from the get-go. We’re both Oakies, both have two daughters (hers are ages 7 and 4). We immediately bonded.”
Besides Oklahoma roots, the two share an appreciation for similar on-air talent. “There have been several people along the way that she’s hired who I hoped to hire, two in San Antonio (her previous station) who she had in her shop.”
Moreno embraces social media and digital coverage — “I know it’s the future, but I also like and enjoy it” — but has no immediate priorities to push here, even as the station’s share of the local news audience has declined from record-setting high in past decades. “It is such an incredibly strong newsroom. There is nothing broken there.”
