With Sinclair poised to close on its acquisition of Allbritton August 1, Bill Lord, WJLA VP and general manager, is leaving the station. According to a memo to WJLA staff obtained by FTVLive.com, Lord was told that September 30 will be his last day.
"These past twelve years have been far and away the best of my professional life and it's all because of my association with you," he said in the memo.
WJLA, an ABC affiliate, is the centerpiece of Sinclair's $985 million acquisition of Allbritton.
Lord, the former news director at WJLA, was named station manager in 2009 and general manager late in 2011.
"It's just one of those things," he tells B&C. "They have a way of doing things that I really couldn't do for them. There's not a lot of anger."
Lord got a masters in journalism from Northwestern University and is a veteran of the U.S. Army Infantry with service in Berlin and Vietnam.
With the Allbritton deal taking a year to close, Lord says Sinclair's decision to look for new leadership in Washington hardly took him by surprise.
