DALLAS — A “local news innovation lab” is in the works for CBS Stations. And, it is ViacomCBS’s owned-and-operated CBS station serving North Texas that is taking the responsibility of housing it and building the “home of a curated team who will be empowered to experiment with next-generation storytelling.”
How does CBS define that?
The lab, comprised of new and current employees, will engage in such things as “data journalism” and new product tests. They’ll also be the beta test hub for new workflow and production model schemes.
It will be based at KTVT-11 and unaffiliated Dallas sibling KTXA-TV. Overseeing the project on a national level is CBS News and Stations President and Co-head Wendy McMahon.
Chad Cross will serve as a senior leader at the lab as VP of Content Development for CBS Stations. In this newly created role, Cross will report to CBS Stations President Adrienne Roark and work closely with colleagues both at CBS News and CBS Stations to facilitate storytelling across the entire organization. He will be responsible for working directly with CBS Stations’ local newsrooms across the country, collaborating with the existing news, investigative and special projects teams, while also building and leading a team of journalists who will support “original, next-generation storytelling across CBS News and Stations’ platforms.”
ViacomCBS says the unit overseen by Cross will develop “new and unique franchises that will investigate topical issues that connect with local and national audiences.”
Cross is joining CBS Stations after having served as the news director at KXAN-36, the NBC station in Austin, since 2012. “I am excited to join CBS Stations and have this significant opportunity to help create premium investigative news reporting and synergy across the recently combined CBS News and Stations organization,” Cross said. “I feel fortunate to be pursuing my lifelong passion, which is a journey that began at what is now the ViacomCBS-owned station in Denver (KCNC-TV). I toured the station during a fourth-grade field trip and decided that day I was going to work in local news.”
Meanwhile, CBS Stations executive Andrea Parquet-Taylor will transition from her current role as VP/News Director at KCBS-2 and KCAL-9 in Los Angeles and return to Big D to lead the first initiative that will be developed at the lab.
She will serve as a VP with the title of “CW and Independent Stations News Director,” and reports to CBS Stations President Tom Canedo. Parquet-Taylor will be responsible for overseeing the launch and production of hybrid, local-to-national multiplatform newscasts for several of ViacomCBS’s CW, independent and MyNetwork TV-affiliated stations.
This encompasses such stations as WLNY-55, which once had its own news department featuring now-WABC-7 morning anchor Ken Rosato at 10pm. Other stations include KTXA and WBFS-33 in Miami.
“These programs will include both hyper-local content that will be produced by multi-skilled journalists on the ground in each market, as well as content produced by team members at KTVT and the lab,” CBS says.
Parquet-Taylor has been a member of the CBS Stations family since February 2017. Before assuming her current role at KCBS and KCAL in December 2020, which she will retain until her successor is hired, Parquet-Taylor spent almost four years at KTVT and KTXA. She initially served as the Dallas-Fort Worth duopoly’s VP/News Director and then was promoted to Vice President and Station Manager in June 2018.
Prior to joining CBS Stations, Parquet-Taylor served as the news director at WNCN-17, the CBS affiliate in Raleigh-Durham owned today by Nexstar Media Group.
The creation of the lab comes following the recent announcement that WWJ-62 in Detroit is getting its own news department.
“[We] are excited to continue to aggressively pursue new and exciting concepts in the new year through the creation of our local news innovation lab,” McMahon said. “We are putting significant resources and investments behind this commitment to be on the leading edge of innovation, as we continue to reimagine how CBS Stations will serve our audiences across all of our markets and all of our CBS News and Stations platforms in the months and years to come.”
— Editing by Adam R Jacobson in Boca Raton, Fla. Contributing content from Zachary Pollack, in Dallas
