After years of telling viewers about job cuts in the steel industry, among automakers, in the airline business and elsewhere, it’s now WBBM-Ch. 2 anchor Diann Burns’ industry—the media—shrinking. It’s now her job lost.
Burns, reputed to be the city’s highest-paid anchor, at $2 million per year, was part of the most dramatic single-day newsroom purge in Chicago TV history.
Beyond its lead anchor, the CBS-owned station on Monday cast off lead sportscaster Mark Malone, longtime anchor-turned-health correspondent Mary Ann Childers, reporter Katie McCall, as well as several behind-the-scenes personnel.
All told, the stationwide cost-cutting sweep claimed about 18 people from what had been a staff of more than 200, effective immediately. No department was exempt. Channel 2 President and General Manager Joe Ahern would only say the reduction was a “single-digit” percentage of the WBBM workforce.
Two-million rapidly depreciating American dollars per annum to sit at a desk and read for 22 minutes?
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