WIVB news director Scott Levy may be learning the hard lesson that texts may not be the best way to send notes about the staff after The Buffalo News wrote a story about a batch of them from Levy that were accidentally made public.
“The text messages between me and my assistant news director were exchanged while managing the day-to-day operations of the newsroom,” Levy told The Buffalo News.
TVSpy received screengrabs of several texts showing Levy criticizing everything from the placement of a Live graphic over a shot of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, to him telling assistant news director Kris O’Donnell one of the reporters is “not strong” and “not our best reporter.” He also criticizes O’Donnell for not handling problems while he was away on vacation. A source tells TVSpy the texts were supposed to be sent to HR, but were emailed to the entire newsroom, instead.
The Buffalo News also focused on Levy’s criticism of reporter Dave Greber.
This morning, Levy said the texts date back as long as six months ago. He also praised Greber, as he had in a recent interview with The Buffalo News
“I stand by those comments when we met up a few weeks ago,” said Levy. “Dave is currently one of News4’s top reporters, and I have tremendous trust in him. He has grown since arriving at the station in 2015 and continues to be the lead reporter nightly on our newscasts.”
Here’s an example text:
Here’s one where he’s being complimentary:
