Anchor Claims the the Church of Scientology Got Him Fired

Dodge Landesman anchored the news at KYMA in Yuma, until he was fired from his job.

Landesman claims the the Church of Scientology was the reason he got the ax.

The former Anchor says he was fired after a Scientology spokeswoman complained about a story he did involving the late Lisa Marie Presley, the church and Danny Masterson.

“Everything had been smooth sailing,” Landesman said of his two months in Yuma, which he came to after going to grad school for journalism and working at several other small stations around the country. “I’d gotten really good feedback and not a single reprimand. I felt good and I respected my co-workers and news director.”

Landesman said he wrote the script which he presented on air and also wrote for the station’s website, but which now has been taken down.

He felt Presley should be remembered for standing up to Scientology.

The NY Post writes that Landesman’s piece, which he admitted was not vetted by KYMA bosses although he said the rarely checked what he said on air beforehand, was titled “Lisa Marie Presley was planning Scientology takedown before her death.”

Presley was allegedly preparing to testify for the prosecution in the original rape case against Masterson — allegedly to say that she’d been pressured by Scientology to convince one of Masterson’s accusers not to report him to the police — but when the judge limited the scope of her planned testimony, prosecutors decided not to call her. The case ended with a hung jury on November 30. She died Jan. 12, two days after the LA District Attorney announced plans to re-try Masterson.

Landesman said that longtime Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw phoned him the afternoon after the piece aired and asked him to remove it. He said he told her he would look into it but did not take it down. Pouw called two hours later and left a voice message that Landesman shared with The Post, in which she asked him again to delete the piece.

Pouw called the following day as well, and then Landesman was called in by his bosses, the news director and the general manager.

“They said it looks really bad and sloppy and they asked for my sources,” Landesman told The Post. “I told them I got the information from Variety and other reliable sources. They said they were going to fight for me to keep my job with corporate and I thanked them.”

But a few days later Landesman said his bosses told him he was too reckless and opinionated — and fired him.

News director Ernesto Romero said in an email to The Post that the station doesn’t comment on personnel matters and that the editor’s note that replaced Landesman’s story online speaks for itself.

The note reads: “In an exercise of editorial discretion, NPG of Yuma-El Centro Broadcasting, LLC has elected to unpublish this piece. After careful review, and given information that came to light after the piece was published, NPG of Yuma-El Centro Broadcasting, LLC has determined that it can no longer stand behind the piece because, among other things, it contained aspects of opinion by the author.”

Landesman says that after several years of bouncing around small stations as an anchor and reporter — making between $18,000 and $29,000 he’s done with “mainstream” media and hopes to strike out on Youtube and TikTok as an independent journalist.

“TV news is falling apart,” he said. “Nobody under 65 watches it and you can see why. Everything we did had to be cut and pasted from the networks and they didn’t want anything original. It’s a sad state of affairs. I want to go out there and tell the truth.”