GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK

Election Day inside a bustling broadcast newsroom that no longer exists

- Abby Vesoulis

IN ABOUT two weeks, nearly everyone in this Atlanta conference room will be out of a job. But tonight, on November 5, the Scripps News team has an election to cover.

“Nothing goes on the air unless it gets vetted through the control room, okay?” says Brian Donlon, a New Yorker who tempers his gruff side with wisecracks. As the outlet’s senior director of live programming, he cautions two dozen anchors, writers, producers, and editors a couple of hours before showtime at the organization’s HQ, “It’s not the Wild West.”

Like other newsrooms across the country, Scripps News was bracing for the worst—potential violence, claims of rigged voting, a deluge of disinformation. But it was also wrestling with its own reckoning: the unraveling of its national broadcast news operation and the imminent unemployment of roughly 200 colleagues.

Scripps News is a division of the E.W. Scripps Company, one of the nation’s largest local TV broadcasters and the owner of brands Court TV and Ion Television. Acquired by E.W. Scripps in 2014 under the moniker Newsy, and then rebranded two years ago as Scripps News, it was pitched as a neutral voice in a hyperpolarized media ecosystem, a just-the-facts national alternative for viewers tired of punditry and hyperbole. Available free via digital antennas and on streaming services, the 24/7 news operation racked up awards and accolades for its evenhanded coverage from industry players like the Radio Television Digital News Association and gained a growing audience.

But financially, Scripps News could not outrun the trends decimating the media landscape—dwindling ad dollars.