KMSP GM Updates Staff After Rough Week

Sheila Oliver

Sheila Oliver, the general manager of Fox-owned KMSP Minneapolis (DMA 15), sent her staff a memo Friday afternoon in the wake of the city’s situation following the death of George Floyd while in police custody.

Here’s the full text of her memo:

Good afternoon:

To address some issues regarding this week’s operations and news coverage, I am writing to give you an update.

The Fox 9 news team is to be commended for the superior coverage of this tragic situation. Particularly those who have been out in the field, the reporters and photographers who have been bringing home the story in such a poignant and professional way. Thank you to each and every one of you.

I want you to know that we have been organizing our news coverage all week with our employees’ health and safety top of mind. We are, however, aware that not every situation can be anticipated, but be assured that as they are happening, they are each being addressed by management. 

That being said, there have been a handful of incidents that have occurred while our crews have been out in the field. In each of these cases, management was aware of the incident in real time and working with the crew members that were involved. Our main goal with each of these is, “is the employee safe?” and “how can we help them in the follow up to this?” We have been communicating with those persons who were involved as things unfolded and afterward. The nature of covering protests with large amounts of people makes safe reporting complicated and so we are always airing on the side of “safety over story”.

Some of you may have seen a re-tweet from an individual re-tweeted who antagonized people to threaten our property last night. After receiving this notification I was immediately in contact with local authorities who were aware of the tweet. After investigating, they did not believe it to be an immediate threat; however, they assured us they will continue to be on high alert and will increase monitoring of the station.  

On another note, we have also arranged a news sharing “network” with all four news stations to cover certain aspects of this story to avoid sending four crews to the same place. This is a plan without a lot of precedent and we are grateful that the market stations have responded to our request so positively.

Lastly, we have been working all week on adding additional security to our news crews out in the field. Similarly to another station in our market, we have had difficulty getting added security guards as they are currently difficult to find — but we continue to work on this.

Several people have reached out to management during the past few days. Some have expressed fear about covering the riots and other have requested to be on the front lines. There is no right or wrong way to feel about a situation like this — and there is no textbook on how to handle it, especially during a pandemic.  As we have been doing, we will continue to listen and respond to individual’s concerns. We are in constant contact with crews who are in the heart of the situation to make sure they feel safe — our employee’s safety has always been paramount.

Our employees’ health and safety is always our top priority. 

Thank you and stay safe.

//Sheila