A Brave New World Is Coming To Local TV News

E.W. Scripps, which owns KSHB 41 in Kansas City, is replacing some of its most recognizable faces with an AI-generated streaming model

Looks like the future of local TV news has arrived—at least at E.W. Scripps-owned television stations like KSHB 41 in Kansas City—and it ain’t pretty.

Scripps has cut hundreds of jobs and is replacing some of its most recognizable faces, including local anchors in about a dozen of its smaller markets, in favor of an AI-generated, 24/7 streaming model.

It hasn’t happened yet in Kansas City. But don’t be surprised if it does.

Earlier this month, Scripps President and Chief Executive Adam Symson announced in a memo obtained by Status, a media newsletter, that the changes were “guided by our vision to create connection through trusted news and information, entertainment and sports programming.”

Although the changes are initially being launched in Scripps’ smaller markets, Symson said the company intends to “expand over time to all local stations, shaped by each market’s needs.”

Symson wrote that the goal was “to strengthen our connection to the communities we serve,” but many Scripps employees are dubious, “questioning how individual stations can foster meaningful connections with local audiences while eliminating some of the most familiar faces viewers welcome into their homes each day,” according to Status.

Per Status:

As hundreds of staffers across Scripps were handed pink slips, Symson reaffirmed his “demand” that Scripps become a “technology-forward company,” telling staffers that the future involves increasingly relying on A.I. and automation. “At a time when many communities are losing local coverage, the depth we are bringing is our competitive advantage,” he wrote in the same memo announcing layoffs. “New A.I. systems and other technology designed and developed by Scripps employees is making this possible.”

Stations affected so far include WMAR in Baltimore, KXXV in Waco, Texas, and KRIS 6 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Citing an account in The Baltimore Banner, Status reported that here’s how things are going down in Baltimore:

On WMAR, an ABC affiliate, live news content that would have aired during the morning and evening shows has been replaced by a rolling stream of prerecorded stories, with graphics separating different segments, instead of live anchors offering engaging transitions. There’s no bantering among co-hosts or even a presence to announce an upcoming commercial break and provide the familiar, “We’ll be right back after this.” What’s missing, in other words, is a person.

It’s not just local TV new stations undergoing AI-related upheaval. The same thing is happening in the newspaper world. In June, I wrote about McClatchy, parent company of The Kansas City Star, telling journalists at its newspapers to accept AI or face ruin.

Straight Arrow News, or SAN, recounted that at a contentious virtual town hall meeting in May, McClatchy executives “touted a flood of AI-generated content as a key to solving their business woes—and pleaded with skeptical journalists to get on board.”

“‘Ask yourself, would you rather our business be ruined than change?’ Greg Farmer, the company’s executive vice president of local news, asked during the May 20 webinar,” according to a recording obtained by SAN.

“‘Or instead, can we overcome that threat, can we walk though that fear, can we climb the cross of the moment and work together to solve our problems?’ Farmer continued. ‘Can we let our illusions die once and for all?’”

McClatchy has adopted a tool called “Content Scaling Agent” that uses AI to repackage news articles at varying lengths for varying audiences. The tool slaps the bylines of actual reporters onto AI-generated stories “and is part of a broader effort to harness AI to increase the number of articles its local brands publish and reach new audiences.”

Whether newspaper and TV news audiences will be receptive to these change remains an open question. My opinion: No, they won’t, especially TV audiences, which tend to develop emotional bonds with their local TV personalities.

But who knows? Maybe they’ll develop the same emotional bonds with AI agents.

“We have a company-wide effort to agentify the entire enterprise,” SAN reported McClatchy CEO Tony Hunter saying during the McClatchy town hall.

I’m not sure what that means, but to paraphrase Shakespeare, “O, brave new world, that has such AI agents in it!”

Supreme Court Greenlights Trump’s Ballroom. Will He Get Rid Of The Statue Of Liberty Next?

Was there anything more predictable than that the corrupt Republican appointees of the Supreme Court would allow trump to proceed with the demented vanity project that nobody asked for and that trump sought no one’s permission to build?

In a 5-4 vote yesterday, the court allowed construction to continue on trump’s White House ballroom, ruling that the preservationists who sued to halt its construction didn’t have legal standing to bring their lawsuit because they were not directly harmed by the project.

The only surprise was that the normally trump-acquiescent Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s three liberal justices in dissent. Roberts wrote that the construction was “likely unlawful.”

I’m happy to see Roberts not siding with trump for once, but why do I suspect that he figured he had nothing to lose, given that the majority sided with trump?

“Likely unlawful”? Certainly unlawful. Federal law clearly prohibits building new structures on federal public grounds in Washington without explicit approval from Congress. Needless to say, no such approval was obtained. (And I’m not even getting into the question of whether trump’s destruction of the East Wing to make way for his stupid project was lawful. Spoiler alert: It was not.)

If historical preservationists don’t have legal standing to stop him, who exactly does the majority think does have standing? Congress, I suppose, but of course that Republican-led body is incapable of standing up to trump.

So, if trump decides to tear down the Statue of Liberty tomorrow, who’s going to stop him?

The huddled masses may be yearning to breathe free, but trump is yearning to deport them. Certainly he’s not going to let some stupid statue—from France, no less—instruct him otherwise.