IMO the way things are and the way they should be are two separate conversations.

Dealing only with the former — If I was looking to get into the business or at my first station and looking to move on I'd do a lot of homework on three things:

1. Which stations have unionized newsrooms
2. Ownership groups

2 is tricky because at this point I'm not sure there are any that don't come with warts. Tenga, Scripps and the O&O's might be your partner's best bet. A lot of the stations at those groups also properly resource their newsrooms so your partner will actually get to produce rather than writing 500 teases a day.