Three years ago, The E.W. Scripps Company, one of the largest broadcast news organizations in the United States, prepared to launch an ambitious initiative. The Scripps Journalism Journey Initiative, a multiyear program with Google, was designed to transition experienced print journalists into broadcast news careers, at a time when local newspapers were closing and newsrooms were shrinking.

Here’s how it would work: Selected journalists would be hired into full-time roles in Scripps’ local and national newsrooms. They’d receive extensive support: training, mentoring, job shadowing, hands-on work and individual coaching. The program promised to offer these journalists a chance to embrace new challenges and reignite the passion that first drew them to journalism.

“They’ve already got the journalism part down, but they have to have the platform delivery down,” Scripps president and CEO Adam Symson told Poynter at the time. “And so putting in place the infrastructure to be able to recruit, train and retain mid-career journalists and launch them into careers in Scripps newsrooms is the opportunity.”

For all its promise, the transition hasn’t been simple. Participants have had to master new skills, learn new jargon and adjust to entirely different workflows. For a good portion of program members, it’s been a steep but rewarding learning curve. For others, it’s been overwhelming, even disillusioning.

“It can certainly be a challenging (transition) overall, and an exciting one,” said Jodie Heisner, news director of WEWS-TV in Cleveland, Ohio, who has welcomed a JJI participant. “I think it really depends on the person that is entering into the challenge, where they are in their career, what they’re looking for, how open they are to change.”

Since the program launched, Scripps has welcomed two groups of journalists. Over several months, Poynter spoke with several participants about their experiences.

Some described the program as a catalyst for growth and a nudge toward a new vision of what kind of journalist they could be. Others recalled an experience that raised deeper questions about fit, identity and the limits of reinvention.

“I don’t want to be corny, but it has been a journey,” said Maki Becker, a senior reporter at WKBW 7 News in Buffalo, New York, and a member of the second group. “It has felt like landing in a foreign country where you do not speak the language, and you don’t know the rules. And you have a map, but it’s a little different.”

Anne Ryman, an investigative reporter at ABC15 in Phoenix and member of the first group, said it’s been a fabulous experience.

Bryan Horwath, also in the inaugural group, had the opposite reaction. “I don’t think it was anything like how it was sold to us,” he said. The reporter with newspaper roots was paired with KTNV-TV in Las Vegas and has since been fired.

Michelle Jarboe, a reporter for News 5 Cleveland, said her year in the program was the hardest of her professional career. There were low points, she said, but also victories. “Overall, it’s been a really rewarding experience for me.”

‘Something completely new’

Anne Ryman had never considered switching from print to broadcast. The award-winning investigative reporter was happy in her job at The Arizona Republic, where she’d worked for nearly two decades. She had great editors, great coworkers. So when Ryman learned about JJI through a recruiter, she wasn’t sure if it was the right move for her.

“When I was in journalism school, you were either print or television or radio, and there wasn’t a lot of inner-crossing between the three,” she said. “And I know it’s changed a lot, which is a good thing. But no, I had never really even thought that that would be an option.”

Ryman had dabbled in video at the Republic and enjoyed it. The promise of training convinced her to apply. “If not for that,” she said, “I wouldn’t have done it.”

She applied for a position at ABC15. After interviewing with Jim Iovino, the director of the Scripps Journalism Journey Initiative, she was sold. “I remember going away from that interview thinking, ‘I’m gonna be really disappointed if I don’t get offered this job,’” she said. “So I was really excited then, when they offered it to me.”

For Iovino, the program’s goals are multifaceted: help seasoned journalists build new skills and help Scripps hire strong reporters, regardless of platform experience. The program can give them new life in the industry.

“If you’re a great journalist, you know great journalism,” he said. “You may not know the video storytelling part of it, or how we do things in broadcast, in digital, as well in video. But we can teach you that stuff. If you come with the journalism already, that’s great. And we want more and more great journalists to join Scripps all the time.”

The program includes training from Scripps and the TV stations where the journalists are hired. In addition to monthly Zoom sessions hosted by Scripps, Iovino said the participants meet in two initial boot camps.

“This past year, we really focused that first one on broadcast writing, and then just the business of broadcast as well — how it’s different than, say, a newspaper, which really relies on subscriptions instead,” he said. “Then we bring them back together again about a month later. And that’s where we go into how to shoot video, how to edit video, how to appear on camera. And give them the basics for that.”

After that, Iovino said, the journalists return to their stations and begin figuring it all out.

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Ryman joined ABC15 in January 2023 and traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, where Scripps is headquartered, for the first boot camp. She remembers sessions on TV versus print and Scripps’ newsroom philosophy, as well as a standout session from an anchor who taught them how to write for TV, a skill that proved to be her steepest learning curve.

“We didn’t have our on-camera training yet, but we had that later on,” she said. “I had a lot of my on-camera training at the station with one of the seasoned reporters who has worked in the market here for a long time.”

She credits Scripps and especially the ABC15 investigative team for making the transition easier. “I was really fortunate. The investigative team just really embraced me from the very beginning,” she said. “I didn’t feel like an outsider.”

The station also paired Ryman with a go-to colleague for questions, though she always felt comfortable asking questions to anybody.

“There was a lot of technical things with TV and a lot of terminology that was very different to me at first, so I had to really just tell myself, ‘If I don’t understand something, just ask somebody. Don’t try to sit and struggle with it.’”

Ryman is the only member of the first group still working with Scripps.

Michelle Jarboe, a reporter at News 5 Cleveland, echoed that the experience depends heavily on the station. Her cohort, the second JJI group, began with 13 journalists. “I think if you talk to all 13 of us, you probably get 13 variations — some good stuff, some bad stuff, some middle-of-the-road stuff. Every station is different.”

At News 5, she said, the onboarding process was unhurried and deliberate. “It was a very thoughtful, patient, methodical process where they were taking time to get to know me, while I was taking time to understand them. I have been privileged to work with really good bosses.”

But not everything came easily. Jarboe said the on-air presentation part of the job has been the hardest for her. “It’s very vulnerable. I’m not a person who ever imagined seeing myself on television. I am not a person who posts a lot of selfies on the internet,” she said, laughing. “It’s very personal to put yourself out there, to be on television, to try to figure out what to do with your hands, what to do with your face, what to do with your hair. That was a really tough journey for me, and it’s still tough sometimes.”

She said having supportive bosses made a big difference in helping her navigate those challenges and ultimately made the experience a positive one.

News director Jodie Heisner imagined that Jarboe’s early months in the job were like drinking from a firehose. For most reporters with broadcast experience, onboarding takes one to two weeks. Jarboe’s lasted several months.

“We wanted to give her time to build her confidence as much as possible,” Heisner said. “Then every once in a while, we saw that she could do something that maybe she wasn’t quite sure of, so maybe a little bit of a nudge here, a little bit of a nudge here. Michelle’s an incredibly fast learner, and really, really great and easy to work with. So she made it really easy, but we really, really wanted to respect the fact that it is challenging.”

Earlier this year, Jarboe was nominated twice for the 56th Great Lakes Emmy Awards.

Scripps reported that Jarboe’s group had 100% retention at the start of the year. Two of the 13 have since moved on; one person joined another broadcast TV station group in a larger market, according to the company, and the other individual left journalism for a PR position.

‘Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn’t’

Bryan Horwath was covering business at the Las Vegas Sun in late 2022 when a Scripps recruiter approached him on LinkedIn.

At first, Horwath ignored the message. “If you look at my bio, I mean, I’m bald, I’m middle-aged, I’m a little overweight,” he said. “I’m thinking, like, ‘What? Why did you want to put me on TV, dude?’”

But curiosity won out. The recruiter emphasized that the Scripps Journalism Journey initiative was a two-year program, focused on training and long-term employment. The salary, about $20,000 more than he was making, didn’t hurt.

“So I was like, ‘OK, why not? I’ll take a risk here. This looks like a solid two years of employment. Newspapers are unstable anyway, so maybe it works. Maybe it doesn’t. But I’ll take a chance on myself. And it sounds like they’re willing to put the time and the effort in. This sounds like the real deal.’”

Jessica De Leon, a longtime crime reporter at Florida’s Bradenton Herald, received a similar LinkedIn message at about the same time. (De Leon and I previously worked together covering crime at the Herald.)

At the Investigative Reporters & Editors conference that year, she attended a Scripps luncheon where recruiters promised a slow, supportive ramp-up into broadcast.

“They basically promised this two-year plan, where they would teach you everything you need to know at your pace,” De Leon recalled. “You know, like, ‘We’re going to hold your hand through all this. We’re not going to throw you in the deep end of the pool. You will have all the resources and training and mentors and consultants and trainers.’ They basically promised to give me everything I needed to master television in the two years.”

De Leon had considered a shift to television, but hadn’t planned to make that change yet. Still, the opportunity appealed. She applied and was hired as an investigative reporter at WFTS ABC Action News in Tampa.

Sarah Moore, news director of WFTS, said the station was excited to participate in the JJI program because it provided an opportunity to invest in local journalism. “We are big believers in the power local journalism can play in connecting our communities at a time when trust in national media is really challenged,” she said in an email to Poynter.

Horwath and De Leon, both members of the inaugural group with Ryman, recalled their surprise at the lack of technical training during the initial boot camp in Cincinnati. “Really, it was mostly just like these team-building exercises and these talks from Adam Symson, the CEO of Scripps, and these other Scripps executives,” Horwath said.

De Leon said it was very conceptual. “I recall some members of the group feeling very nervous. To a degree, we all had questions like, ‘When are we going to get to the technical stuff?’” she said. “And we really didn’t get into any of the technical stuff.”

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In a March follow-up session at the NICAR conference, De Leon said they finally covered technical skills — but barely. “We never touched our camera equipment. After having made us travel with it, we never used it,” she said. “We spent some time shooting video on our company cellphones. We spent maybe 45 minutes with a company photographer who gave us a brief overview (of Final Cut Pro).”

Scripps has since adapted the program by adding more focused skills training and hands-on practice.

Back at the station, De Leon struggled. She felt as though there was an expectation that she was fully trained, and despite being hired as an investigative reporter, she never got to work on investigative projects. She also described feeling like the de facto reporter for Manatee and Sarasota counties while working at a station headquartered in Tampa. Even when she tried to focus on in-depth stories, her day was often derailed by urgent daily assignments since the station didn’t have a bureau reporter in her area.

“I was the only person they had down there,” she said. “To me, that always seemed unfair.”

In an email to Poynter, Moore said the station is committed to helping its employees succeed. And the Journalism Journey Initiative is no exception, she said. “The JJI team and WFTS leadership worked closely throughout our participation in the program to provide several layers of training — ranging from newsgathering and copyright best practices to broadcast-writing, video-shooting, video-editing and on-camera skills training,” Moore said. “The participant also received robust individual training and development opportunities — both at the station and more broadly with the cohort of JJI participants across Scripps.”

But before her first year was up, De Leon said she was placed on a performance plan.

“It’s a two-year training program. This is what I kept saying to them. And I even said this in a meeting where HR was included, ‘How can I be on a performance plan when I’m in a two-year training program?’ That is contradictory. That does not make sense.”

De Leon said the pressure took a mental and physical toll.

“I expressed some of this. I was very open, and kept asking for help and telling them, ‘I was good at my job. I used to wake up and know what I was doing. Now I wake up, and every day I’m just struggling to survive,’” De Leon said. “Every day, it felt like I was just drowning.”

In late 2024, De Leon was notified that her contract would not be renewed.

Moore said she could not comment on specifics about former employees.

Horwath’s trajectory was similar. After some initial shadowing, he said his newsroom started sending him out on stories.

“I kind of learned whatever I learned by asking other employees at the station. There really wasn’t any more formal training. It was just kind of like, throw you out there and see if you can sink or swim.”

Horwath recalled Scripps arranging Zoom sessions with a talent coach, which he said were helpful, but “not a whole lot.”

Horwath said he always worked with a photographer when he was out reporting stories. It was implied, he said, that eventually he would receive training on editing and shooting. But he said it never materialized. Instead, Horwath said he was encouraged to watch YouTube videos to learn Final Cut in his spare time. “And I’m thinking, ‘No. You guys can train me on my work time. I’m not gonna take my personal weekend to teach myself Final Cut.’”

He stressed again that this was what the program promised. It wasn’t a race.

In August 2024, nearly two years into the job, Horwath was slated to lead the 5 o’clock news with a story from the field. After a back-and-forth with managers over the expectation of an anchor intro, he said he was abruptly terminated the following week.

“I’m fired over a phone call,” he said. “I’m totally dumbfounded.”

In late April, Horwath filed an action seeking declaratory relief against Scripps, arguing the company owes him money under his contract. KTNV news director Jessie Williams said the station cannot comment on active litigation but expressed support for the Journalism Journey Initiative. “We welcome any opportunity to amplify great journalism, particularly when we get to do so with reporters who have expertise in the Las Vegas market,” Williams said.

In January 2024, KTNV welcomed Steve Sebelius, a veteran political reporter from the second JJI group. A Scripps spokesperson confirmed the company has filed a motion to dismiss Horwath’s suit. Court records show, however, that the case remains active, with its next hearing scheduled for Sept. 8 in Clark County District Court.

‘Learning experience for us all’

In Buffalo, New York, veteran newspaper reporter Maki Becker learned about JJI through an inaugural participant’s post on X. At first, she dismissed it because she thought it would mean uprooting her life and family. But then she discovered that she could stay where she was and still make the leap to broadcast.

Becker, then a reporter at The Buffalo News, viewed it as a career reboot. “It was like this opportunity for something new and different,” she said. “I never thought I could just jump into broadcast. That just didn’t seem like anything I could possibly figure out how to do on my own.”

Becker applied and was hired as a multimedia journalist at WKBW 7 News.

Aaron J. Mason, news director at WKBW, said welcoming Becker to the station was about valuing experience over broadcast polish.

“I want people who know this community and who know how to tell a story. We can help train you on how to shoot and how to edit. The technical stuff we can train you on,” Mason said. “Veteran journalists are so valuable, especially in this day and age.”

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Mason said what makes Becker successful is that she brings a nontraditional TV background to the work.

“You see it in her storytelling,” Mason said. He calls her stories “Maki-made.”

Mason cited as examples a profile of a farm-to-school program and a story about the absent landlord of dilapidated properties in Buffalo. Mason said the latter was celebrated as a storytelling “Win of the Week” across the company.

Becker’s first week at WKBW was, as she put it, “crazy.” There was a snowstorm, and though the senior reporter recalled not knowing how to do much yet, she contributed by working the phones. Becker had been hired as a multimedia journalist, which meant that she would eventually pitch, shoot and edit stories on her own. She told her colleagues in those first weeks that she couldn’t really do the full job yet, but she felt comfortable doing some stories if she worked with a photographer. The learning was gradual.

Becker said she was surprised at how physically demanding the job is. As an MMJ, you have to show up on camera, use your voice, drive to locations, haul equipment and manage the gear. You also have to convince people to go on camera on your schedule, all while racing to meet a 5 p.m. deadline.

“It’s demanding in many different ways. I didn’t know it would be like that. I mean, it’s stressful. Deadline is like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s intense,” she said. “You got to make air.”

Becker said newspapers have that intensity, but there’s much more leeway because you can post the article on the website.

“I think that drop-dead deadline has kind of disappeared from a lot of newspapers,” she said. “But that’s not going away for broadcast.”

For the next six months, Becker said her group joined Zoom sessions organized by Scripps, covering various topics and featuring other reporters sharing their work. While she appreciated the training, the demands of her new role made it hard to attend everything live, so she caught up when she could. Scripps also provided an on-air coach and a writing coach.

“More than anything, it was just nice to have someone to just sit and talk about what I was working on, and story ideas, and how to approach things,” Becker said. “Because it’s so fast-paced in the station that people just don’t have time.”

A similar path played out years earlier for investigative reporter Shannon Behnken, who learned TV on the job with mentors guiding the way. Behnken, an investigative reporter for WFLA News Channel 8, first dipped into TV while still a reporter for the Tampa Tribune. At the time, the Tribune and the station were both owned by Media General, and Behnken recalled the company starting what she called a big experiment: The newspaper folks would do some work for TV, and the broadcast journalists would do some work for the newspaper. Behnken said the program didn’t go very smoothly, but it worked out for a couple of people, including her.

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Initially, Behnken said, she was not keen on producing TV packages. She had no training. But people helped her along, and she found mentors. She had coffee with other reporters and met with the news director. With time, she got better and eventually signed a contract with the station. And so, for a few years, Behnken worked in both print and TV.

After the Tribune shut down — following its acquisition by the Tampa Bay Times, which Poynter owns — Behnken kept working in television. And in 2016, the station created a franchise for her: Better Call Behnken. People phone in about consumer problems and she goes out and tries to solve them.

“I love it because I’m able to go out and really make a difference in people’s lives and solve problems, and I can do more advocacy journalism in the broadcast side than I was able to do in newspaper,” she said. “I still will always mourn newspapers because I loved that job, but I do see the benefits of this type of job.”

‘We’ve learned a lot’

Iovino said Scripps doesn’t expect JJI participants to be “plug and play.” Stations are encouraged to pair them with mentors and executive reporters, a new role within the company designed to offer hands-on support.

“We’ve learned a lot from the first year, and it was a learning experience for all of us, really, in that first year,” Iovino said. “We gained a lot of knowledge on how people learn in this environment, and what takes more time to learn than other things. Some of it was not surprising.”

Based on early feedback, Scripps added new components for later groups, including “skill sprints” following the boot camps and training in video editing. A spokesperson said Scripps has also evolved its internal training program to identify areas in which participants need additional training and skill-building. “From one cohort to the next, we’ve made improvements,” Iovino said.

Scripps tracks the number of stories produced by participants, though it does not treat that as a formal success metric. “We have conversations with cohort members to help them identify areas of strengths and weaknesses and to help them make continuous improvement throughout their time in the program, including providing additional one-on-one personalized coaching when needed,” Iovino said in a follow-up email through a spokesperson.

The company also released more details on the program in a year-end report. And a spokesperson noted that one reporter in the program won a regional Emmy Award, and participants have collectively earned multiple nominations.

De Leon, who struggled early on in Tampa, said she was much more comfortable with the technical aspects of her job before her contract ended. She said she’d like to remain in journalism.

“Telling stories of our community, the good, the bad or ugly, telling people what they need to know to make the decisions in their daily life, that is what I love.”

Iovino declined to discuss specific personnel but acknowledged the program hasn’t worked for everyone.

“I think we’ve had successes with the program, a lot of them, and there are also learning experiences with the program as well,” he said. “As long as we continue to iterate and grow the program, that’s what we can do to make sure that it improves year after year.”

A Scripps spokesperson told Poynter that the company is still in talks with funders and candidates for future groups.

Back in Vegas, Bryan Horwath has rejoined the print world. He is now a breaking news reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal.