New owner SJL Broadcasting continues to clean house at Flint’s WJRT.
After losing its general manager and longtime news director as SJL assumed control of the ABC-affiliate last Friday, WJRT is now saying Goodbye to two anchors who have been the face of the station for decades.
New WJRT GM Peter Veto has decided to dump Bill Harris (right), who has been with the station for over three decades and who most recently anchored WJRT’s 5, 6, and 11 p.m. newscasts, as well as Joel Feick (far right), a weekend anchor who has been with the station since 1983.
“Quite frankly, I don’t know much about it, because it’s still fresh, other than that my services are no longer needed,” Harris told The Flint Journal in confirming his dismissal.
The departures of Harris and Feick come less than a week after Jim Bleicher, who served as the station’s news director for over twenty years, left the station. SJL announced last week that Veto, who has a long-standing relationship with the company’s principles, would take over management of WJRT from Tom Bryson, who, like Bleicher, had been with the station for over two decades.
Harris started with WJRT in 1977 and at times held the positions of news director and executive producer in addition to his anchoring duties. A four-time regional Emmy winner, he took home the Best News Anchor award in 2007.
Feick most recently anchored the station’s 6 and 11 p.m. weekend newscasts. Before joining WJRT in 1983, Feick worked as an anchor-reporter for Toledo’s WDHO.