Was a Local TV Reporter Fired for a Handstand?
Establishment Media vs. Entertainment Media
Did on-air gymnastics during an 'America's Got Talent' report led to Julie Tremmel's firing?
Julie Tremmel, a local TV reporter with NBC affiliate WJAR in Rhode Island, was recently fired, and many are wondering if the cause was a handstand she performed during a segment on "America's Got Talent" auditions.
Since the dustup over her handstand occurred, reporter Julie Tremmel has taken to Social Media to save her job...
Tremmel's dismissal inspired an on-line petition from fans, one of whom wrote, "She had no intention of causing any problems. She was similar living in the moment. I, and many will never understand why she would be fired over something so silly. BRING HER BACK!!!"
Tremmel's dismissal inspired an on-line petition from fans, one of whom wrote, "She had no intention of causing any problems. She was similar living in the moment. I, and many will never understand why she would be fired over something so silly. BRING HER BACK!!!"
A FaceBook Page in support of Julie Tremmel has also popped up.
Please like this page to help support my friend Julie Tremmel.
According to Yahoo News Reporter Mike Krumboltz,
specifics of Tremmel's dismissal are difficult to come by. She told GoLocal Providence, "I was terminated without cause from WJAR and my Union and I are fighting it through the grievance and arbitration process in our Contract with the Station."
Did Julie Tremmel's handstand directly lead to her dismissal?
A spokesperson from WJAR's human resources department declined to comment.
According to Krumboltz the timing is curious...
Handstand Hullabaloo in Providence
Sunday, February 23, 2014
By Dianne Williamson
dwilliamson@telegram.com
13 comments/ add a comment
Julie Tremmel was so enthused about her job as a reporter for an NBC affiliate in Rhode Island that she literally did handstands for the station.Unfortunately for Tremmel, the move didn't win over the judges, otherwise known as her bosses. Days after the segment aired, she was fired from WJAR.
But that's not the end of the story. Tremmel has filed a grievance against the station, and her fans have taken to Facebook and other social media to demand her reinstatement. The dispute also highlights the tension between those who favor the older, establishment-type TV news and others pushing for a looser, more entertainment-based format.
The 36 year old Tremmel, a Marlboro native, was well known in Worcester as a hard-working anchor and reporter for NECN "Worcester News Tonight" from 2004 to 2007. She has since worked in Springfiled and Albany, N.Y. before landing a job as a nightside reporter with WJAR 15 months ago.
"I'm in a complete state of shock over my sudden job loss," Tremmel told me last week.
Her firing Feb. 11 came a week after she performed a shaky handstand during a live, light-hearted piece about local auditions for the NBC show "America's Got Talent." Tremmel declined to discuss the details of the firing, and station news director Chris Lanni didn't return a phone call
But the stunt wasn't the first time she raised eyebrows at WJAR. Last summer, after a bear was spotted in the area, Tremmel took to the woods with a hands-on reenactment about how to response to a bear attack. The piece included her flapping her arms and curling up in the fetal position.
The segment went viral, but not everyone at the station was pleased. Most notably, a respected WJAR investigative reporter name Jim Taricani posted on Facebook that some found the segment "a smudge on our station's reputation," and wrote, "...some TV reporters like to draw attention to themselves... its an insult to most of us trying to be professional."
Taricani, 64 is retiring in April after four decades. He declined to comment last week on the Tremmel affair, citing union involvement.
But the veteran's discomfort with his younger collegue's sometimes flamboyant style underscores the ongoing struggle within television journalism to strike a balance between professionalism and performance. As viewership declines, the medium has striven to attract younger viewers and remain relevant in the digital age. The struggle has led to a shift from a dry, just-the-facts recitation of events to a more informal, chatty format that would have Walter Cronkite rolling over in his grave.
Weighing in on the Tremmel affair, Dean Starkman, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and editor at the Columbia Journalism Review, noted that Tremmel "was certainly capable of serious reporting" but also represented a "more informal, self- promotional style" believed to appeal to younger viewers.
"This new style is a heavily influenced digital culture: fast, witty, self-conscious, ironic, and informal, sometimes to the point of juvenile." Starkman wrote on GoLocal Prov.
An online petition to bring her back to WJAR had 182 signatures as of Friday night. "I've been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from viewers and fans," Tremmel said. "People are reaching out to me around the world, and it's been heartwarming."
Contact Dianne Williamson at dwilliamson@telegram.com
What do you think, was WJAR smart to have pulled the plug on reporter Julie Tremmel for a headstand and some silly on-air Bear antics?
Let's Google the facts:
Establishment News vs. Entertainment News
Old-line news
Throughout, WJAR has presented itself as the sober establishment station that -- while engaging in plenty of happy-talk, to be sure -- eschewed some of the flash displayed by local TV rivals. Its anchors stay for decades – Patrice Wood has delivered the news there for 30 years. But its public face has been the tight-lipped, self-effacing Taricani, who for decades has reported on political corruption and organized crime and whose on-camera style is more a throwback to TV news’s post-war golden age than to the digital age.
Behind the culture clash, of course, is the digital revolution.
The migration of local advertising to Internet giants Google, Facebook, Craigslist and others has wrecked havoc on mainstream media finances, newspapers especially, but local TV most certainly included.
Big picture
But here is the big picture via a few graphics, courtesy of the Pew Research Center, that show at a glance what’s been happening to the news, and local broadcast in particular.
Longterm viewership in local TV is steadily declining down, while local TV ad revenue is down even if it has stabilized at current levels. Here is the viewership trend:
The viewership declines have put pressure on local news outlets to find ways to reverse the trends. Their options are limited. Either they can bolster news staffs, which has not been the norm, or find ways to increase their visibility and relevance, particularly among younger viewers using the same size or smaller staffs. This has fed a general trend toward a more sensational, and some believe, less deeply reported news reports.
And while traditional platforms are down across the board, many viewers have been migrating toward digital sites and platforms. This added another “news hole” to fill for already stretched staffs as they are now asked to produce more content for their websites.
Adding to the pressure has been long-term demographic issues. Local TV news has traditionally skewed older than the general population, but those trends have accelerated in the digital age. The Pew survey found that in 2012 only 34 percent of audience members in the 18-29 age range said they watched any local TV news the day before, compared to 49 percent in 2006. By contrast 65 percent of those in the 50-64 age range said they watched local news regularly, a rise of two points from 2006.
Questions remain
All of the above has spurred a wave of experimentation as local TV news outlets try to stabilize these trends and find news ways to increase audience share, particularly among younger viewers.
The extent to which the big picture has played a role in shaping the Tremmel-WJAR employment battle is unknown. But the backdrop is crucial to understanding the new landscape for local TV news.
Also unclear is how much at the details of the dispute will ever see the light of day. Typically, labor disputes are negotiated in private. And of course the inter-personal dynamic between Tremmel and her supervisors is a crucial element that is unique to this dispute. But among the questions left hanging by the matter are these:
- What expectations did WJAR have when they hired Tremmel, who at the time had more than a dozen years on the air?
- What kind of guidance Tremmel received, particularly after the bear-attack piece.
- To what degree was a culture of informality encouraged?
- And, finally, where and how WJAR decides to draw the line between fun and foolishness.
What do you think, did WJAR go too far in firing a reporter for a handstand?
I love that you used a local example...what an interesting and bizarre story, though. I also really enjoyed how you looked at the big picture situation and showed a chart about trends in regular news sources, and then ended with some thought provoking questions. Nice post, Kim!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kayla for your comments, I am still not sure how I feel about the story it is bizarre.
ReplyDelete