Two new multimedia journalists will join KVLY-KXJB in Fargo next week: Tony Ullrich (pictured) and Robert Hahn, news director Griff Potter announced in a staff memo today.

Ullrich joins KVLY-KXJB from KOMU in Columbia, MO, where he has been a multimedia journalist, weekend anchor and live truck operator since 2008. He began his television career at KMEG, the CBS-affiliate in Sioux City, IA.

Hahn joins the Fargo duopoly from Bay News 9 in St. Petersburg, where he is an anchor and multimedia journalist. He has previously worked at KWGN in Cheyenne and WFXL in Albany, GA.

WSIL — the ABC affiliate serving southern Illinois and southeastern Missouri — has replaced paper copies of scripts with iPads.

Getting rid of physical scripts will save the station an estimated $4,000 a year in paper costs, according to the WSIL website. Paper scripts — kept on hand in case of a teleprompter failure — are printed for each anchor and can generate as many as 100 pages for a half-hour newscast.

“After more than 20 years of flipping script paper, it took some getting used to,” 5 p.m. anchor Mark Kiesling said. “But I was sold after the first newscast.” Read more

Terry Graham, a longtime fixture in the WFXL newsroom who worked as an anchor and most recently news director for the Fox-affiliate, passed away over the weekend.  He was 55.

“I’m devastated by it,” station manager Deborah Gay told the Albany Herald this week, saying that everyone at the WFXL is in a state of shock. “Terry was a great person to work with. I’m sorry this has happened.”

According to the Herald, Graham died “after a long illness.” After working for many years as an anchor and news director with the Albany, GA station, Graham left three months ago.

WFXL remembered Graham during a recent newscast (video here).

When WFXL made Romney Smith its main anchor this month, she became the first African-American anchor in Albany, GA (market #145).

Smith joined WFXL in 2009 and had been working as a reporter for the Fox-affiliate, which is one of two local news stations in Albany.

“Taking the job made me happy and sad,” Smith told the Albany Herald. “I was extremely happy about getting this promotion during Black History Month because I was kind of shocked it had never happened before. My frame of reference was always large metro areas that had black and Hispanic anchors.”

Smith was raised in Marietta, GA and earned her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.

“I look at being the first black main news anchor in Albany as a personal responsibility,” she said. “I want to be the best reporter and news anchor I can be, but I also want to be a good role model, specifically for young black women.” Read more