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.”

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