At News 12 New Jersey, A Staff Exodus Over Workplace Toxicity Claims

Mass resignations have rocked the editorial staff at News 12 New Jersey. According to three sources close to the situation, who spoke under conditions of anonymity in part because they fear retribution from Altice, the cable news channel’s owner, recent and pending departures of News 12 New Jersey’s news director, assistant news director, two executive producers and a senior producer came down to charges of a toxic work environment cultivated by upper management for the past two years.

Leadership has been insincere, dishonest and condescending toward staffers, sources tell TVNewsCheck. They exhibited a lack of compassion when workers communicated personal and professional needs during the global pandemic and in individually challenging moments. And micromanaging has rendered employees uninspired, disillusioned and afraid to make independent decisions.

Worst of all, these sources say, top-down decrees have compromised the news team’s ability to best serve the community it has been dedicated to since the cable news channel debuted in 1996. They say local stories have been deprioritized in favor of sponsored content and generic, general interest segments produced for consumption across all seven News 12 markets in the Tri-State area.

Trouble for the News 12 New Jersey team began in May 2020 with the hiring of Jacques Natz as GM, sources say.

Described in an Altice press release as a “longtime veteran journalist, digital and media strategist,” Natz was put in charge of “the entire News 12 organization, including editorial and business operations.” He was tasked with growing the digital imprint of the group, boosting linear viewership across its channels and developing local partnership and revenue opportunities.

But workers at News 12 New Jersey describe Natz as hyper-controlling and someone who believes his judgment can never be questioned, though he harbors little knowledge of the market.

During a recent News 12 New Jersey editorial meeting, which took place on Zoom as the personnel exits multiplied, Natz joined the discussion to offer an explanation for the shakeup. He attributed the employees’ choices to leave the channel to individual re-examinations of their lives and priorities, inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. The staffers were quitting, according to Natz, because they had come to recognize how difficult the news business is and did not think they could handle the grind any longer.

Sources say they believe Natz used the meeting to control the narrative and divert blame for the resignations away from himself and his management style. Colleagues of the departed employees, who had worked with them for years, knew their decisions to quit were not prompted by a lack of motivation or disenchantment with the industry — it was the unsustainable working conditions.

The hiring of Audrey Gruber as the VP of news and, later, assistant GM of News 12, did not improve matters in New Jersey. Employees at the news channel were surprised by her appointment in December 2020 because Gruber had a history of insensitivity toward staffers in a previous position.

While a VP at Spectrum a few months earlier, Gruber was reportedly dismissive of sexual harassment claims levied by a NY1 female senior producer against a male executive producer at the channel. Shortly after Gruber was hired at News 12, her name came up in a New York magazine exposé about the “petty, vindictive, backbiting, lawsuit-laden, career-ruining infighting” at NY1. The feature said Gruber made “derogatory remarks” about the on-air appearance of a veteran female anchor, who’d recently endured a bout with colon cancer.

Some News 12 New Jersey staffers took the hiring of Gruber as a sign from the organization’s executives that they were not concerned with how workers might be treated under new leadership.

As VP of News at News 12, sources say Gruber has undermined editorial leaders in charge of local news by approaching assignment editors with story ideas, completely sidestepping news directors.

“You need to trust that your news directors know their community, know their employees, know their region, and that they’re going to make the best decisions for what needs to be put on television in that area,” one source said.

Sources say Gruber is also prone to raising her voice at staffers and has barked orders at producers via a video conference platform to change segments, in real time, as talent delivered them on air. The approach not only made the segments more challenging to execute, but stripped creative control from producers, leaving them feeling as though they are not trusted to do good work.

An increase in sponsored content during news programs in the past two years has hindered the ability of News 12 New Jersey producers to deliver impactful stories to the community, sources say. There’s no longer as much time in a given newscast to do so.

Some believe the channel’s managers have also taken steps to present sponsored content while framing it as news.

For instance, last fall, the Broadway show Jersey Boys was named sponsor of the station’s weekly segment covering theater, “On the Scene.” In the run up to the show’s sponsorship stretch, however, orders came down that the editorial team had to quickly produce a story about Jersey Boys. Considering the timing and the insistence from leadership that the news segment air prior to the “On the Scene” sponsorship, many in the newsroom believed the Jersey Boys story was a stipulation of the sponsorship agreement between the show and the station.

An increased number of segments designed for air across the News 12 network have snatched additional minutes away from newscasts that could otherwise be filled by local news spots. One example of this, cited by sources, is a recently launched series focused on consumer tips called The Real Deal. News 12 New Jersey staffers were embarrassed by the recent airing of an instructional video from the series about how to most effectively pack luggage before going on vacation. The News 12 New Jersey team members who spoke to TVNewsCheck feel such segments do nothing to inform the local community, and detract from more substantive local reporting.

Programming moves like these have induced a growing fear in the News 12 New Jersey team that eventually its hyperlocal stories will be entirely nixed. In their minds, the company is taking steps toward a model rife with regional coverage across its markets.

Sources say Natz and Gruber have shown no willingness to reintegrate the “Jersey” into News 12 New Jersey programming, even after newsroom employees have pleaded with them to do so.

Among other points of contention, sources say Natz and Gruber have been inflexible with scheduling, which in some cases has placed undue burden on workers and their families. (When meteorologist Reed McDonough left News 12 Long Island, it was over a schedule-change request that was not met. The company then sued him for breach of contract. McDonough called the case “baseless.”)

An Altice spokesperson responded to these allegations with an emailed statement. “News 12 New Jersey stands behind its editorial coverage and news teams and continues to provide viewers in New Jersey with the very best in local news content,” the statement reads. “News 12 New Jersey is also set to welcome Teisha Parker as news director next month, and we’re excited for her to continue advancing the News 12 brand and lead the New Jersey newsroom into the future. We take these matters seriously and are reviewing them internally.”

Sources say they decided to speak out against Natz, Gruber and the News 12 organization because they’re upset about how they’ve been treated and hope sharing their stories will lead to improved conditions at the station and a rededication to local news.

Breaking background-source protocol to give a direct, thorny quote, one source said: “Jacques Natz and Audrey Gruber are ruining News 12 New Jersey.”