Now Graham is Doing This Crap!

We saw Scripps try this crap and now it appears that Graham Media is going to rip the page out of the Scripps playbook.

You may remember that when Sean McLaughlin was the VP of News, he came up with the idea on an "Executive Reporter." At Scripps, the "ER" was supposed to report the news, but also help train green MMJs on how to do their job.

Many in the industry rolled their eyes at the position with one longtime News Director telling FTVLive, "Isn't the News Director and Assistant News Director supposed to guide the talent?" The ND also added that in a small market, the Reporter (MMJ) is supposed to learn how to do their job, before moving up.

Well, when McLaughlin was exited from Scripps, you never heard much more about the "Executive Reporter" position and I can't recall seeing a job position for such job lately at Scripps.

But, the the bewilderment of many in the industry, after Scripps pushed him out, McLaughlin landed a job at Graham Media.

Graham used to be known as one of the better companies to work for, but they have lost some of that luster after bringing McLaughlin on board.

McLaughlin oversees a Texas station, but is also still a VP of news for Graham. When we saw this job posting at KSAT (San Antonio), we knew where the idea for this position came from.

San Antonio is basically a top 30 market and the fact that you need to hire a Reporter to train Reporters, seems odd in that size market.

Also, what is the News Director, Assistant News Director, Managing Editor or the EPs doing at KSAT?

"It's like a plague, first helping ruin Scripps newsrooms and now pushing the neighborhood news/exec reporter philosophy into Graham stations," said one industry insider to FTVLive.

Lastly, if your Executive Reporter is not heads and tails that much better than the other Reporters, who is going to listen to them.

If I'm kicking butt in San Antonio, I don't think I'm going to give a crap what some new person has to say.

Give it a year and you will likely not see this job offered up at any of the Graham stations. At some point they'll see through McLaughlin's bag of old tricks.

At least, we would hope so.