For local television personalities, a painful goodbye

Penna Stalley

 One of the hardest stories for any reporter to cover is when a company closes or cuts jobs.
It’s a subject that often elicits raw emotions. That makes choosing questions carefully a primary and necessary task.
Writing the same story when it involves colleagues is even more challenging.
The story of Peak Media of Pennsylvania deciding to outsource news production for its WWCP and WATM television stations to WJAC provided just that circumstance.
The entire team at Fox 8 and ABC 23 was well respected, and longtime anchors and reporters Jim Penna and Sherry Stalley are highly regarded.
They provided outstanding coverage of their broadcast area – and more specifically the Greater Johnstown region.
No one is happy to lose a job. But the loss conveyed by Stalley and Penna certainly revealed one thing – providing the news was not a job to them, it was a passion.
Stalley and Penna spoke of the station, and specifically the 10 p.m. WWCP newscast, as if it were a family member.
They fully understood the weight of their responsibilities to the community and how they impacted peoples’ lives by entering their homes through the magic of television for five hours a week.
Penna said he was proud to be the champion of the little guy. His passion was making sure there was a voice for those otherwise rendered mute.
“If you picked up the phone right now and called the United Steel Workers and asked what they thought of me; called some of the folks who live at Laurel Crest; ask the guys who lost their jobs at EMGLO, they would say we were there for them,” Penna said.
“The fact that we would be at the top of that list of places where they would turn for help is more important to me than any rating point or dollar value anyone could ever place on this job.”
Stalley said the most difficult part is walking away from the relationships that she has built during the past 15 years, both at the station and in the field.
“This was more than a job,” Stalley said. “This was my family.
“This is what I gave my heart to when I wasn’t with my family. How do you say goodbye to that? How do you walk away? It’s like a piece of my heart was ripped out, and it’s literally killing me.”
The people who will be hurt the most are the residents of the region.
While WJAC certainly will do a fine job filling the news holes for the two stations, this area will move forward without two of its finest journalists and their team serving as watchdogs.
Though some would argue the opposite, less media is a bad thing.
It means less of a chance that a deserving story is told. It becomes less likely that a scandal is unveiled.
It’s less likely that a missing child is found or that residents are made aware that their municipality is planning to do away with police due to a budget crunch.
Since 1992, this region’s residents had a few more sets of stalwart eyes looking out for them. They will be missed.

Shawn Piatek is a reporter for The Tribune-Democrat and Johnstown Business Weekly. He may be reached at spiatek@tribdem.com