With neither general manager nor news director in place, KMGH Channel 7 is a station adrift.
When KMGH General Manager in September with no explanation, the corporate bosses at E.W. Scripps sent Steve Wasserman, an interim executive from WPTV West Palm Beach, to calm nerves and steady the ship.
The station had already seen the who announced the previous month his move to WEWS, the Scripps station in his hometown of Cleveland.
The twin departures left the station rudderless. It was assumed by those in the newsroom that successors would be named early in 2015. That was five months ago.
The station has floated through two ratings sweeps periods on auto pilot. An ABC affiliate in the No. 17 market, a thriving, desirable city, shouldn’t have trouble attracting applicants. Some suggest the top-down management style of the corporate ownership — and the curious departure of one of the most successful managers in local TV station history — are red flags to potential hires.
To review, Grandy is the long-serving KMGH general manager who rose from the news director position to create a haven for investigative reporters, ultimately earning cases of trophies in recent years, including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Columbia-DuPont Award and numerous Emmys. He oversaw the group whose reporting inspired the rewriting of laws, forced institutional changes at the Air Force Academy, at a state mental hospital and in state government, and pushed the outlet to national prominence.
And now the operation is at sea. Neither Scripps nor the former managers are talking on the record about what happened. Folks in the business say the no-nonsense news culture that existed at the station will soon be history. (Among the names mentioned as potential GM candidates is a former news director locally.)
Former staffers suggest whoever replaces Grandy will have to be more amenable to corporate demands for obedience, more conventional and shorter news stories, keen on ratings and Scripps syndicated filler, and less concerned with the national reputation for investigative journalism. That is, someone who won’t rock the boat.
