D.C. Station May Ask Anchors To Work Own Prompters, Primitively

If you’re a newscaster at WTTG Channel 5 in Washington, your job just got a little tougher.

The Washington Post reports that the station is planning to reassign the technicians who operate the electronic prompters that feed anchors their scripts. This is, of course, a cost-cutting move.

The anchors will now have to work their own prompters, something that apparently requires a fair amount of dexterity. One employee, speaking anonymously, compared it to “a literal one-man band — singing, banging a drum, crashing cymbals, playing a trumpet and strumming a guitar.”

TV stations in smaller markets often require newscasters to work their own prompters but the practice “is largely unknown in major markets.”

The best part of this article is the fact that in 2009, when you can buy a computer that fits in your pocket, the prompters at WTTG will be operated by “series of hand levers and foot pedals.”

Is this some sort of steampunk newsroom?

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