Scripps combines national, local news leadership, following similar moves at CBS, ABC

E.W. Scripps has combined leadership of its news operations under a single executive.

Kate O’Brian, who previously worked for ABC News and Al Jazeera America, joined Scripps in 2021. At the time, she headed up Newsy (now Scripps News) and Court TV.

She will still have responsibility for those two brands but is also adding all of Scripps’ local station newsrooms to her purview. 

“Kate O’Brian is a skilled executive and journalist who embodies our responsibility to serve American audiences nationally and locally,” said Adam Symson, president and CEO of Scripps, in a statement. “This new structure puts oversight for the entire company’s news and editorial strategy under her leadership, Scripps will maintain locally run, locally focused newsrooms serving each of our local markets, and at the same time we will coordinate our local and national reporting for the benefit of all our audiences, including for Scripps News’ network.”

Scripps still plans to hire a head of local news and once that position is filled, that person will report to O’Brian.

The move of putting local and national news brands under one leader echoes changes made at Paramount Global and Disney. 

Back in 2021, Paramount, then known as ViacomCBS, named co-presidents of a combined “CBS News and Stations” group, a unique setup in that it had two executives at the top of the org chart and was one of the first major companies to combine national news and local station operations.

More recently, ABC announced a similar move Feb. 14, 2024, that put ABC News, local stations and a collection of Disney’s linear networks under Debra O’Connell’s responsibility. 

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Because most local stations’ local productions are typically local news and lifestyle programming, it made a certain degree of sense to organize the company this way, and Scripps hopes to capitalize on the efficiencies of combining leadership of its national newsgathering operations with local ones. 

While Scripps News is not a network in the sense that CBS or ABC is, it still does cover global news and is already sharing content and collaborating with Scripps-owned stations in other ways. The move aims to help combine editorial direction and strategy between the various newsrooms as well.

O’Brian’s past experience includes running ABC’s affiliate news service, NewsOne, and was the first woman to run a 24 hour cable news organization, the short-lived Al Jazeera America.