If you're so unhappy, why do you stay?

[lovinlife101]

sinklair: “We’re last place! We suck! Our wages and benefits are the lowest in the market! Dave Blondie pays an agent to be here. Our management sucks! We have meteorologists co-anchoring morning news segments! We have the lowest number of staff yet support two stations! Bill Harris is ineffective and kisses police butt! This is now a starter-station!”

Coworkers: “Tell us something we don’t know.”

[lovinlife101]

Speaking genericallySometimes there's no better place to go. Or sometimes the logistics are impossible.
Ironically our southern border is inundated with people using the "big world" concept to find a better place.

For someone like Sinklair, there is no better place that would hire him.

[lovinlife101]

I must give credit where credit is due. Sinklair, and others who work for the place they are criticizing here, are trailblazers. They are risking current and future employment by calling out bad behavior, and I respect that.

[lovinlife101]

What’s it like around the office with everyone internally asking “Are you the one posting on the Buzzboard?”

It must be difficult and distracting to ignore the elephant (no, not all the republicans there) in the room.

[lovinlife101]

Welcome back NBC 25/Fox 66’s management to the Buzzboard! Thank you for adding your “spin” to this thread.

Let me correct you on several points:

First, the Flint-Saginaw TV market is not a small market. It is market 65 out of 205 DMAs in the US. It’s not Detroit (large market)... but it’s not Marquette or Alpena. This is your main argument. While the GM at 25-66 runs the station like it is a small market (small staff size, low pay), that is because he wants to increase profit margins.

Let’s be clear: Sinclair Broadcasting is making TONS of money. Don’t believe me? Check out its public filings. CEO Chris Ripley and Board Chair/owner David Smith make some of the highest salaries in the broadcast industry.

The company’s recent plan to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour is a nice gesture. However, it’s embarrassing that there are many veteran staff members at 25-66 that are in a position to “benefit” from this pay adjustment. $15 an hour should be the starting wage for entry level employees in the company’s smaller markets/training grounds, like WPBN in Traverse City... not significantly larger markets like Flint.

If you’re making $15 an hour... that equates to a yearly salary of $31000. More money than I was making when I first got into the business in the 1990s... but hard to pay bills, student loans, professional clothes and makeup, etc.

For the record, 12 and 5 pay more than $17 an hour for employees with experience. But for the sake of argument, the additional $2 an hour difference between starting wages at 25-66 and 5&12 equates to an addition $4000 a year. When you’re only making $30000 a year, an extra $4000 is a lot of money. The least 25-66 should do is raise their pay to the market rate. Want to keep good people and prevent them from leaving after one contract cycle? That would be a good start.

You send a lot of your post bashing unions. Must be afraid of a balanced negotiation where workers have an increased voice in improving pay and work conditions. If you want to head it off, all management needs to do is listen and include workers’ voices in the process. That won’t happen with current management at 25-66... which is why some workers (not all) are talking about union organization.

Your argument about understaffing is essentially everyone else is doing it, so there’s nothing wrong with having the least amount of news staff, adding more responsibilities, and more news on multiple stations. That’s a crap argument. If all other stations jumped off a cliff, you’d probably follow — based off your argument.

Here’s a new approach: give your journalists (in front and behind the camera/in the field and back at the station) the support, time and resources to do actual journalism... not the gimmicks, advertiser sponsored segments and fluff community events that are currently taking over our newscasts these days.

Low morale — “don’t hate, appreciate.” Great comeback. There’s a reason why workers call them “f-off Fridays”. The GM and HR Director believe potlucks, Family Feud, Easter Egg hunts, grilled cheese sandwich days fix everything else that’s wrong with the station. It doesn’t. Plus they hold these events many tines when overnight staff have gone home, day news and production staff are out in stories or night staff haven’t even arrived at work. That means it’s more of a party for managers and for the sales team, who should be out with clients making sales. And when you’re out on a story (you know, actually doing work) and can’t participate, the HR Director/party planner accuses you of not having any team spirit.

You clearly believe the station can’t do anything more to recruit minorities than to post jobs in its website. How about networking with minority journalism organizations like NABJ? The station actually made an effort years ago... which resulted in hires like Walter Smith Randolph, Jane Park, Kristen Aguirre, Kelli Taylor, Sherise Thompson, Courtney Wheaton, etc. No such ongoing networking and recruitment is going on. Hence why in a market with a significant African American and Hispanic population, only Mike Woolfolk is a person of color with a main anchor role. It’s a pathetic argument that recruiting is limited to only those who apply and is yet another example of lazy management.

Biased corporate must runs — are you really comparing Sinclair’s politically slanted stories to other broadcasting groups like Gray? That’s laughable. NO OTHER broadcast group runs biased news stories like Boris commentaries and conservative slanted stories like Sinclair. No one. Plus add in a mandated promo with local anchors that was widely mocked. The GM and News Director need to do their job and push back against these corporate must runs and demand that (at the very least) these stories aren’t politically slanted. They won’t because they are “company” men and women.

Beer: you clearly don’t know me. I’ve worked in many markets, lots of experience working with good and bad stations. Hence why I can call out bad management and bad journalism. Maybe it’s time for you to get more perspective. You’ve drunk the Kool Ade.

There is no consequence for bad management. When you speak up and offer suggestions to improve things you are labeled a “complainer”, ignored, disciplined, fired, forced out or not have your contract renewed. The GM and “Assistant GM” only want yes people working under them. You say managers manage. Let me rephrase that for you... at 25-66, bad managers manage badly.

The GM is the station’s former sales manager. So when the station can’t make its numbers as you suggest, then maybe a change at the top needs to happen. If as you suggest that news can’t make ratings, then maybe the GM should stop micromanaging the news department and let real journalists do the news. Crazy idea, I know.

“No soup for you”... that’s January’s employee appreciation activity.

In closing: I’ve worked my butt off and I don’t need to be lectured by people who believe a 3rd and 4th place station simply is doing the best it can. I will stay at 25-66 as long as I want, continue to do my best job, and continue to call out bad management. If you don’t like it, then fix the many problems.

And if you think money isn’t a driving factor for every employee, you’re delusional. We’re not coming in and putting in long hours for charity. That’s one of the dumbest statements ever made on the Buzzboard... with the possible exception of every statement typed by LL101.

If nothing else you are passionate about your beliefs.
Why not try to address the issues the correct way, instead of with all these rambling statements about this or that. Most people in this forum really don't care about your problems. Their here just to see the train wreck.

This is a guide that was copied from a website.

Explain the goals and objectives of the change.
Explain why the change is necessary.
Discuss what the change may look like and how it may affect departments and individual employees.
Speak in terms of how the company and everyone will benefit from the change.
Establish roles and responsibilities for how the change will be achieved; that is, who is going to do what, when, why, and how.
Discuss the project time frame and timelines.
Establish the desired results.
Keep providing progress updates.
Encourage feedback from all employees to continuously improve the plan.

Now this is just an example of how things are done. You can change it to fit your situation.
Lay out your grievances in a professional manner and submit it.
If you're not willing to try a legitimate route for change, you're just pissin' up a rope.
And one more thing. Have someone proof read it before you submit it.

You should charge for your advice. You just provided more value than any union has!

[lovinlife101]

Beer: that’s not necessarily how hiring needs to be done. Good stations are recruiting all the time, they network, they partner with organizations to find good candidates and they work with universities to develop a pool of candidates for important or hard to fill positions. None of the current managers are currently doing this. That’s why they fail when it comes to finding a diverse candidate pool. It actually takes ongoing effort. And as we’ve identified in other posts, management at 25-65 is part of the problem by setting a poor example.

I can’t see why they can’t get top notch talent. Every time there’s an opening, which is often, Dave Blondie posts the position and puts “hey, want to work with me?”on his social media. You’d think that would be a recipe for success.

[lovinlife101]

This is an interesting experiment.

The goal, as stated, is to try to improve communication, pay, and benefits for non-managers.

What may actually happen is qualified talent seeing this, running away from this place faster than a raped date, and the organization settling for even *worse* employees than it had before.

I have my popcorn and am excited to watch!

[lovinlife101]

Nope, I get paid in grilled cheese sandwiches. Yum!

Too bad. I get paid in POONTANG!!!