WNEP anchor and producer Marisa Burke left the Scranton, Pa. ABC affiliate Friday while chief meteorologist Tom Clark is expected to depart soon after taking buyouts offered by Tribune.
“We are always looking to operate as efficiently as possible and improvements in technology have enabled our TV stations to automate more than ever,” Gary Weitman, spokesman for Tribune Media Co., told the Times Leader. “We are engaged in offering voluntary buy-outs to a small percentage of employees across our station group. As I’m sure you understand, for reasons of privacy, we can’t comment on individual employees who may or may not have been offered a voluntary buyout.”
Burke, who told The Times Leader her buyout was “very generous” started in radio in 1980 before joining WSLS in Roanoke, Va. She was hired at WNEP in 1984 as a morning and noon anchor.
“Clark, who began full-time in 1982, said he was planning to retire within a couple of years, but the offer from Tribune was ‘too generous to pass up,” reports TVNewsCheck. “He said it was not worth the risk of staying around, as he planned.”