News operation
Right from the start (January 3, 1970), WHAG began offering local newscasts with The Valley News which aired weeknights at 6, 7, and 11 p.m. The original anchors were Bob Witt with news, Glenn Presgraves with sports, and Bill Wolfinger forecasting the weather. Wolfinger also did a Saturday night horror movie show where he would be in costume similar to Lon Chaney. The news department expanded in 1972 to include weekend evening broadcasts at 11 that totaled six hours of local news per week. By the year 2000, news content increased to over 22 hours of broadcasts per week. In 1997, WHAG added a microwave truck allowing the transmitting of live breaking news from the viewing area.[2] On February 12, 2010, the station switched its on-air and news brandings from "NBC 25" and NBC 25 News to "WHAG" and WHAG News, respectively.
Outside of a few senior staffers, the station's news department mainly acted as a "farm team" operation that features new journalists and behind the scenes staff who have graduated from their schools looking for experience at a small-market television station and serve as "one man band" personnel that shoot, write, and edit their own stories, and eventually move on to further opportunities in larger markets. The station operates a bureau on East Patrick Street (MD 144) in Frederick.
On August 30, 2010, WHAG added a half hour to its weekday noon and 5 p.m. newscasts. Until this point unlike most NBC affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, the station had not aired a broadcast weeknights at 5:30. It still does not offer a full two-hour weekday morning newscast. There is now a half hour broadcast on Monday-Saturday nights at 7. On weekends, an hour-long morning show at 6 a.m. as well as a half hour Sunday morning broadcast at 9 p.m. were added. In addition, a Northern Virginia Bureau covering Chantilly, Leesburg, Berryville, and Winchester was opened. Although not a full news department, this is now the second local news operation established in those areas after TV3 Winchester launched on March 5, 2007. All of the preceding changes required the expansion of WHAG's personnel.[28][29] On October 21, 2013, WHAG began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.
Nexstar undertook a major expansion of WDVM-TV's news operation that launched on July 1, 2016, the same day the station lost its NBC affiliation. While it broadcasts standard newscasts at 5:30 a.m., 6 a.m., noon, 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 10 p.m., the 7 a.m., 7 p.m., and 11 p.m. hours are also set aside for Maryland- (I-270 News) and Northern Virginia-specific (Nova News) coverage. WDVM-TV also simulcasts Nexstar-owned WOWK-TV's Tonight Live at 5:30 p.m.[30][31][32]
On July 11, 2022, Nexstar moved WDVM-TV's primary studios from Hagerstown to Washington and rebranded newscasts as DC News Now, along with changing many of the on-air personality and anchor lineups. The former studios in Hagerstown are now used as a bureau, alongside the existing Frederick and Chantilly bureaus. On July 25, another newscast expansion occurred, with the morning newscast expanding to four hours, the 5 p.m. newscast expanding to an hour (which also resulted in the move of the WOWK-produced Tonight Live to 11:30 p.m.), and the addition of a new 9 p.m. newscast. WDVM-TV's 10 p.m. newscast moved to WDCW and the 11 p.m. newscast was replaced by a half-hour sports program.[33]
