U-T San Diego will add television news to its print operation. UT CEO John Lynch announced the move at a Rotary Club meeting yesterday.
"We intend to launch very shortly a 24-hour all-news TV station called UT-TV, that will premiere on our video site www.utsandiego.com and it will also be aired on one of the cable channels."
He said U-T-San Diego reporters will become content contributors who will write a story for the paper and then produce a video report.
KPBS confirmed the plan with the new owner of the paper, Doug Manchester. Manchester says the expanded news service will begin in April.
But the TV news operation apparently is news to those in the U-T newsroom. Several staff members said off the record that they had not been told of the new venture.
Lynch also elaborated on the organization’s plan to be a leader for the community.
“We’re going to do once a month, a major editorial backed up by a story as well. We've got three people working full-time 24/7 on this as we build up to it. We want to make sure all of our facts are correct.”
U-T San Diego published the first of these front-page editorials on January 22, calling for a “new vision for the downtown waterfront.”
Lynch did not respond to requests for further comment.
