The exodus continues at WKRC-TV: Reporter Angela Ingram, a 14-year veteran, worked her final newscast Wednesday, three weeks after 10-year veteran Angenette Levy left.
Ingram, who joined WKRC-TV in December 2006 from WSBT-TV in South Bend, Ind., was the station's longest-tenured general assignment reporter after the departures in recent years by veteran journalists Deb Dixon, Jeff Hirsh, Joe Webb and Larry Davis. WKRC-TV main anchors Rob Braun, Cammy Dierking, and weekend morning anchor/reporter Perry Schiable also left the Sinclair Broadcast Group station last year.
Local 12 has lost more than 287 combined years of Cincinnati broadcasting experience from its newsroom in three years, far more than any other local TV station.
"I just want to thank Cincinnati and the surrounding area for making me feel welcome and loved in your community. Thank you to all of the people who shared their stories with me over the years and trusted me to be fair and do the best job that I could," Ingram wrote on Facebook.
"Today is my last day with the station," she said. "This was a hard decision for me. I had a good run ... almost 14 years, met amazing people, told stories from the heart. Thank you all, again."
The Philadelphia native earned a bachelor's degree in broadcasting from Temple University in 1998. While working for the South Bend station, she earned a law degree from Valparaiso University in 2005. She is licensed to practice law in Indiana. (Perry Schiable, who left Channel 12 last November, also is an attorney.) Ingram teaches media relations, too.
On her angelaingramtv website, Ingram says she "believes that no one can ever take your education away from you. Have integrity and your reputation will lead you to success."
Her first job was a desk and production assistant at Philadelphia's WCAU-TV. She later worked at CN8, the Comcast Network in Wilmington, Del., as a general assignment reporter and producer before going to South Bend.
With the promotion of Adam Clements and Meghan Mongillo to anchors earlier this year, Ingram became the longest-tenured general assignment reporter at Channel 12. (Medical reporter Liz Bonis has been there longer, but she also anchors regularly.)
In the past three years, the station has lost a combined 287 years of Cincinnati broadcasting experience – and 225 years in the Local 12 newsroom – from Braun, Dierking, Dixon, Davis, Hirsh, Ingram, Brad Johansen, Levy, Schiable and Webb.
Many of the departures can be traced to the culture change under Sinclair, which bought the station in 2012. Braun left in 2019, a year after he and Dierking were forced to read a corporate news commentary about media companies pushing "their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think."
Braun told WVXU listeners that he balked at the commentary because "they weren't my words. Some of what was in that was true. And some of the things… I didn't believe… We were just required to read them as puppets, and it just didn't sit well." Braun said he didn't fit "the Sinclair news model," which uses stories from other Sinclair stations instead of "doing purely local" newscasts.
"The business model that Sinclair brought in was different, and it was hard to swallow. But on paper, from a business standpoint, it makes a lot of sense, because they own a lot of stations, they have a lot of reporters … That's how they're going to run their business, and frankly, it's their business. They're allowed to do what they're going to do. It's their ballgame. And you had to get on board or get out, and fortunately I was able to get out on my own terms," he told WVXU.
Dixon said Channel 12 was a difficult place to work, especially after Braun and Dierking were forced to read the Sinclair commentary in 2018. She also said she wanted to work longer at Channel 12, until her last contract offer.
"If the company had wanted me to stay, it would not have given me an offer that was so easy to refuse. With a better offer, I would have considered another year because of the (work) family I’m leaving behind," she told me in 2018.
