Posted above the double-door entryway to WRAL-TV’s Raleigh headquarters is a quote from founder A.J. Fletcher: “To inform the public without bias or favor is this station’s highest duty.”
Behind those doors is a warren of conference rooms, studios, control rooms, and a large, open-plan newsroom. James Goodmon Jr., the fourth-generation president of WRAL and its family-owned parent company, Capitol Broadcasting, strides down hallways filled with plaques and memorabilia commemorating the station’s impact on local journalism.
Inside the main control room, he looks on as a group of producers seated before an array of 15 monitors speak calmly but rapidly into their headsets, executing the complicated, minute-by-minute choreography that is the 4 p.m news. Next door in the studio, he watches as a pair of anchors prepare to go live, a “Breaking News” banner scrolling across the screen in front of their desk.
A few minutes later and one floor down, Goodmon Jr. sits at a long conference table and absentmindedly rakes his hands across his face, pushing his rectangular glasses onto his forehead…