For those of you who may not have heard, WMAR-TV in Baltimore, where I worked for 13.8 years, has elinated all anchors from newscasts as part of the Scripps mass layoffs there and elsewhere and its swtich to AI produced and hubbed shows. It's only the next sad step of this evolution and I had a chance to weigh in for a column written today by Leslie Streeter Smith in The Baltimore Banner, a Pulitzer-winning paper born to compete with the now Sinclair-controlled Baltimore Sun.
Submitted for your approval, with some scrolling:
In the nautical sense, an anchor is a heavy metal device that, when used, holds a ship in place. In journalism, a news anchor does the same job, as the grounded support that holds down all the moving parts around them, from the meteorologist to the field reporters.
So what is a television station without anchors? WMAR-2, an ABC affiliate owned by E.W. Scripps, is now figuring that out. They laid off more than a dozen producers, photographers and anchors earlier this month as they switched to anchorless streaming, The Banner reported.
Having watched several newscasts of the station’s new format, cobbled together from reporter segments, prerecorded packages and cuts to ABC or Scripps reporters elsewhere, I can say it’s sort of like an anchorless boat — floating all over the place.
And it’s not good. In fact, it’s bad for journalism, because it seems to be a money-saving measure that puts people out of work and destabilizes the presentation of news. And anything that makes it harder to consume and digest facts and information is bad for society.
“It’s very painful and sad,” said former WMAR reporter and anchor Wayne Lynch, who worked there from 1974 to 1987. “I can’t imagine anyone gravitating toward it. I’m sure the viewers probably feel betrayed.”
I’m a viewer, and a journalist, and this absolutely feels like a betrayal. This new format seems soulless, like Waymo driverless taxis or delivery robots. There’s a connective piece missing, and that’s actual people. The lack of anchors undermines what makes local news actually local: They give a newscast personality and flavor, distinguishing it from news in other cities. They also provide context and continuity.
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Well, they don’t do that on WMAR anymore, and the result is startling. The broadcasts that I watched had solid reporting, but without an anchor to transition between stories, particularly those of different tones, it felt oddly disjointed. Reporter Blair Sabol’s story on the family of the late Samuel “Big Sam” Elsworth Brown Jr. filing a federal civil rights suit against Baltimore County was followed by a prerecorded segment by national ABC News correspondent Alex Stone about Dolly Parton’s death. The only transition between the stories was a blue station logo thrown up silently like the Bat-Signal.
Besides introducing reporters and reading stories themselves, anchors provide a solid center, a fluidity and a trusted trademark. “I call it ‘assisted suicide of a station,’” said Lynch, who added that the broadcast he watched online last week from his home in Seattle was “sterile, with no one to knit together the content and packages.”
To me, it’s like an Oreo with no filling. OK in its separate parts. But there’s nothing to hold it together.
Those of us who grew up in Baltimore in the ’70s and ’80s remember how important legendary WJZ anchors Jerry Turner and Al Sanders were at the desk. They had a chemistry, a gravitas, like your wise news uncles. You trusted them. I felt the same way about former WMAR anchors Jamie Costello and Kelly Swoope, the latter of whom was among the staffers who recently lost their jobs.
I know that the “Anchorman” movies are hilarious, with their blow-dried pompous news idiots. But let’s be real. Being an anchor is a skill. You don’t just start at the anchor desk. It’s an accomplishment, something you work your way up to.
Over my career as a print journalist, I have had the chance to do various television appearances. And what I have observed, in every market, is that a good anchor is a combination of journalist, actor, therapist, air traffic controller and improv master. I have seen them keep things moving when the teleprompter stops working, when co-anchors have on-air coughing fits and have to duck out mid-sentence, and when breaking news cuts into their segment. It’s honestly a little nerve-racking to watch. But it works.
And after watching several of the new WMAR broadcasts, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t work without them. “Anchors do have the ability to knit stories together,” Lynch said. “Now that they’re not there, it just looks robotic.”
Lynch’s concern is that as bleak and journalistically unsatisfying as WMAR’s new broadcasts are, they might be setting the stage for more. “Other station owners are watching this very closely, seeing if Scripps’ action gets any traction,” he said. “If it does, they’re gonna go, ‘Maybe we can try this in a few places.’”
That’s probably going to save some money, but it’s going to kill the news.
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