As WFAA-Channel 8 Adds Third Morning Anchor, Belo Announces 150 Layoffs

On Monday, Ed Bark noted that WFAA-Channel 8 has hired Kristin Mitchell as a co-host on Good Morning Texas -- making that show a threesome now, as the former St. Louis anchor joins a set already populated by Gary Cogill and Amy Vanderoef. A Friend of Unfair Park is not...

By Robert Wilonsky

March 11, 2009

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On Monday, Ed Bark noted that WFAA-Channel 8 has hired Kristin Mitchell as a co-host on Good Morning Texas -- making that show a threesome now, as the former St. Louis anchor joins a set already populated by Gary Cogill and Amy Vanderoef. A Friend of Unfair Park is not impressed with Belo Corp.'s timing: Late yesterday, WFAA's parent company announced that by the middle of next month, it will lay off 150 employees throughout its 20-station TV group, which also includes the St. Louis station at which Mitchell used to work.

Belo's release also says it's suspending its 401(k) matching contribution for all employees, while managers will receive a 5-percent salary reduction. These "cost-saving measures ... will help reduce the Company's expense base amid the current economic slowdown," notes the release. Newspaper spin-off A.H. Belo Corp., of course, is in the process of laying off 500 employees. As Dallas Morning News publisher Jim Moroney told Unfair Park last week, following layoffs at The Denton Record Chronicle, "The other subsidiary operating companies and TDMN [The Dallas Morning] reductions will happen over the next several weeks if we can get it all done by then."

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