Al Primo is recognized as the inventor of the Eyewitness News brand and how local news is still done today.
Here’s Primo on WTNH anchor Ann Nyberg‘s weekly show telling her how beat reporting and Eyewitness News got its start.
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A few years back told our sister site FishbowlNY, how he invented the format, while working at Philadelphia’s KYW.
“I noticed that everybody in the newsroom was a member of the AFTRA union. There was a clause in that AFTRA contract that said any member of AFTRA could write, report, and appear on the air with his own story without being paid additional compensation,” Primo says. And just like that, Eyewitness News was born.