Sinclair Whacks More Newscasts

The corporate spin-doctors at Sinclair Broadcast Group are at it again, and this time they are gutting weekend morning news in Cincinnati to pay for a cheap programming expansion on weekdays.

At WKRC, the local legacy station that literally created Cincinnati's Saturday morning news format back in 1991, the weekend morning newscasts are officially dead. Instead of local journalism on Saturday and Sunday mornings, viewers will soon be treated to Sinclair's right-leaning national feed, "The National Desk," along with "Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson" and a heavy, depressing dose of paid programming infomercials.

To make the budget math work, Sinclair has executed a quiet bloodbath at the station, showing the door to several notable local newsroom veterans. Weekday morning co-anchor Aleah Hordges, who has been co-anchoring "Good Morning Cincinnati" since 2022, is gone. Sports reporter Richard Skinner has also been cut, with his planned August retirement bumped up a month early by the bosses. Even 46-year news veteran and Emmy-winning executive producer Doug Lillibridge was shown the door.

Of course, Sinclair corporate media relations tried to wrap this cynical cost-cutting move in the flag of "more journalism." A corporate spokesperson claimed the weekend cancellations were done to "support" the launch of a new weekday 3:00 PM newscast coming this September.

Do not buy the corporate spin. Moving staff from weekend shifts to populate a cheap-to-produce weekday afternoon hour is a classic Sinclair shell game. It is about "long-term sustainability"—corporate speak for cutting heads, reducing payroll, and running the remaining staff ragged to fill more airtime with fewer resources. Replacing localized, community-focused weekend morning news with national syndication and paid informercials is not a commitment to the local community. It is a commitment to the bottom line.

While Sinclair's corporate executives talk about "delivering strong local news," Cincinnati viewers are left with empty infomercials, and some of the market's most respected journalists are left looking for work. It is yet another reminder to television journalists nationwide that under Sinclair's ownership, the corporate spreadsheet will always win out over the newsroom.

H/T WVXU