Fired St. Louis Anchor Says He Has a Job Offer

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Former KMOV Anchor Larry Connors says he has a job offer, but that he can't accept it because of his non-compete.  

Conners claims that the job opportunity is in St. Louis.

Conners wrote on his Facebook saying, "I have been offered a job to return to broadcasting in St. Louis."

Connors was fired from KMOV when he made a Facebook post claiming that the IRS was "hammering" him after an interview he did with President Obama. Connors implied that interview was the reason the IRS was targeting him, when in fact his problems with the IRS started much earlier than that.  

Connors filed a discrimination suit against the station after they sacked him.  

Connors wrote on Facebook "my attorney, Merle Silverstein, is filing to stop KMOV from enforcing the non-compete so I can return to St. Louis airwaves."

 

When will Cops Learn?

When will Cops Learn?

Someone needs to tell every cop that graduates from the academy, no matter what else you do, let the media do their job.

Word coming down that the Detroit Police Department internal affairs officers have launched investigations following the arrest of a Free Press (newspaper) photographer who was shooting video a police action on a public street last week.

The Free Press reports that Police said they are looking into the conduct of photographer Mandi Wright and the actions of an officer who ordered her to stop filming and wrestled her phone away from her. They also are looking into the disappearance of a memory card from her newspaper-issued iPhone and whether she was briefly left alone with the crime suspect whom she had been filming.

More plus the video after the leap.   

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LA News Crew Attacked

LA News Crew Attacked

A KCBS/KCAL crew was attacked as protests around the city in George Zimmerman acquittal grew violent. 

The LAPD says the news crew was attacked at near the corner of 43rd Street and Crenshaw Boulevard.

Reporter Dave Bryan was conducting an interview around 10 p.m. when the assault occurred.

The suspect tackled Bryan and the photographer before fleeing the scene, station officials said. 

Further details were not immediately available.

At about 10 p.m., the LAPD announced it had declared an unlawful assembly, with protesters given a certain amount of time to disperse or be arrested.

The news crew was treated for minor injuries.

The video after the jump.    

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Cleveland "Hero" Claims He's Broke and Homeless

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Charles Ramsey was hailed by the media as a "hero" after he played a role in helping rescue three Cleveland women held captive in his neighbors house.

In the two months since the rescue, Ramsey has made around $50,000 from "corporate speaking engagements" and money raised online.

Despite making $25 grand a month since being featured on local and national news,  Ramsey says he's broke. 

"I’m broke, bro," Ramsey told the Daily Mail. "That’s the truth." 

Ramsey bought a BMW after the incident now claims he was fired from his job working in a kitchen because customers kept coming in to shake his hand.

The Mail reports that Ramsey was basically "shamed" out of his former house by his neighbors "who claim he exaggerated his role in the rescue of the girls."

Ramsey says that he has gone for jobs as a prep cook, restaurant worker and a dishwasher, which was his old job before he became famous.

But once word gets around of where he is working, it becomes impossible because of all the interest, even if he is out of sight of the public.

It all adds up to an unenviable paradox: Ramsey is too famous to lead a normal life, but not famous enough that he can make a career out of it, he says.

‘I don’t have an address, I don’t live anywhere. I go from house to house, to friend to friend, to family member to family member,' he said. ‘What I’ve been doing for the past four weeks is wearing out my welcome with everybody who knows me. 

‘Some places I don’t think I’m allowed to go back, I don’t know why, I don’t do nothing.’

He pleaded: ‘Just give me a job.

Hey Charles we know of a Summer Internship Job that opened up at the NTSB. 

 

Anderson Cooper Lands Juror B-37

Anderson Cooper Lands Juror B-37

CNN's Anderson Cooper hit BINGO last night when he landed B-37. 

B-37 was a Juror in the George Zimmerman Trial and is the first Juror to speak out since the verdict.   

Earlier in the day, there were reports saying that Juror B-37 was planning on writing a book about the trail, but, she has since canceled those plans. 

B-37 told Cooper she had "no doubt" he feared for his life in the final moments of his struggle with Trayvon Martin, and that was the definitive factor in the verdict.

The woman, who was identified just as Juror B37, spoke exclusively to CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" on Monday night. She is the first juror to speak publicly about the case.

She said she believes Zimmerman's "heart was in the right place" the night he shot Martin, but that he didn't use "good judgment" in confronting the Florida teen.

More plus video after the jump.   

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Record OT in O-Town

The George Zimmerman Trial brought the Orlando stations some huge ratings. It also costs the stations some huge bucks. 

That is especially true when the case went to the jury on a Friday and the jury deliberated all day Saturday before reaching a verdict late Saturday night.

Orlando stations had all hands on deck working the Weekend covering the Zimmerman case and it shows in the overtime clocked in. 

WESH News Director Bob Longo sent out this Tweet saying his station has set an OT record.  

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No word yet in Anchor Martha Sugalski's triplets are yet on the payroll. 
 

KTVU Needs To Do a Lot More Than Just Apologize

KTVU Needs To Do a Lot More Than Just Apologize

Former local and cable news Producer Chez Pazienza says he wants to let KTVU fake pilot names story go...but he just can't.

Chez writes on The Daily Banter I still find myself shaking my head on occasion at the sheer impossible absurdity of it, suddenly stopping whatever it is I’m doing to say out loud to nobody, “How in the hell could they have let that happen?” I sometimes wonder if I’m actually more incensed than KTVU News Director Lee Rosenthal is that his news department somehow — for reasons no one with a brain let alone a working knowledge of a broadcast newsroom will ever fully comprehend — allowed four obviously phony, racially insulting Asian pun names to go out over the air last Friday.

More after the Jump. 

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Radio Station Cools Off on Hottest Poll

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Yesterday, FTVLive told you about a radio station in Maine that has posted pictures of local news anchors on their website and asked listeners "Who is the Hottest TV Newswoman in Maine?"

FTVLive also told you that one station did not like the idea of their anchors being featured in the poll. The station said: 

"WCSH6 and WLBZ2 do not condone the current WDEA poll involving our reporters’ names and images. We made it clear before the start of this poll that our newsrooms will not participate and that our individual reporters do NOT want to be involved. We find it demeaning to our reporters and the other journalists used in this contest."

After FTVLive posted the story the radio station changed the poll’s headline to ask readers their “favorite” instead of the “hottest” TV newswoman. The also included the following revision in the post:

“It seems we offended a few of you out there with our use of the word ‘Hottest’ to describe these lovely and talented journalists. It was not our intent to offend, so we’ve changed it to ‘Favorite.’ Sorry about that.”

But it seems that not all the newswomen felt the poll was "demeaning," Nicole Gerber, an anchor/reporter and producer for WVII, posted a link to the poll on Twitter and Facebook on Monday morning, asking her fans to “send some support.”

After the FTVLive story deleted the social media posts.

Maybe she changed her mind. 

Apple Looks to Ad Skipping TV

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An Apple a day might keep the commercials away. 

After years of rumors of all sorts of newfangled products supposedly in development to take over the living rooms, there’s fresh scuttlebutt that Apple is in discussions to create a service that would allow viewers to engage in ad-skipping.

And here’s the grabber: Apple would supposedly pay the TV networks for the ad revenue they missed out on due to to the skipped commercials.

 Read the rest in FTV Tech 

Philly Reporter Bumped Up the Food Chain

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Jericka Duncan has been named a Correspondent for News Services at CBS News, the Network’s 24-hour television newsgathering service for CBS stations and broadcasters around the world.  Her appointment is effective immediately.

Duncan joins CBS News from KYW-TV, the CBS owned and operated station in Philadelphia, where she had been a general assignment reporter since August 2010. While there, she earned a first-place award from the Associated Press and a local Emmy nomination for a series of reports about disabled adults held captive in a Social Security scam.  In addition, the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists named Duncan its “Journalist of the Year.”

Duncan reported for KYW-TV as part of the CBS News Development Program, which is designed to create a pool of highly qualified producers and correspondents for the news division. 

Before that, Duncan was a reporter for WIVB-TV, the CBS affiliate in Buffalo, N.Y., where she served as a reporter since August 2007. She began her broadcasting career in 2005 as an anchor and reporter for WETM-TV in Elmira, N.Y.

 

The last Line Gave it away

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FTVLive was sent a link from PRLog.org (A press release website) that said that KTVU Anchor Tori Campbell was taking a leave of absence from the station after reading the fake names of the flight crew for Asiana Airlines.

We also saw the story linked on Social Media. 

The story said that the GM of the station advised Campbell to take the leave. 

It all looked legit and was on a PR website that we have seen countless stories used on the internet.

But then came the last line of the story. A part that many people might not have even read. 

It said that  "Ophelia Payne will temporarily replace Campbell." Read the replacement anchor's name slowly. 

It appears that it is a hoax.  

Scott Pelley Tweets 2 Times in 3 Years

On July 11th Scott Pelley sent out this Tweet:  

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It was a tease for an interesting story, but not really much more. But yet, the Tweet from the CBS Anchor was newsworthy for one reason. It was only the second Tweet he has sent out since he joined Twitter back in 2011. 

His only other Tweet was the day he started anchoring the news on CBS.:

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And while Pelley has only sent out 2 Tweets in his life, it's two more than NBC's Brian Williams has sent out. BriWi has over 175,000 followers on Twitter and has never sent out a single Tweet.  

As for Scott Pelley....we're predicting that Pelley will be sending out another Tweet around November 15, 2014. 

We can hardly wait.  

Asiana says it is Suing KTVU

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Things are going from bad to worse for the Bay Area's KTVU.

As FTVLive reported yesterday, Asiana Airlines had said that they were looking to sue the station over their reporting the fake names of the flight crew.

Now the airline says they are GOING to sue the station, claiming that the fake names broadcast have damaged the airline's reputation.

We have to say, when their pilot bounced the tail of flight 214 off the seawall at San Francisco Airport, that may have also damaged the airline's reputation.

Just saying...  

Station Says Leave Us Out Of "Hot" Anchor Contest

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When websites and radio stations run out of ideas, they always turn to the "Who's the best? or Who's the Hottest? polls to try and drum up traffic.

Since the news is slow this time of year in Maine (and the rest of the year for that matter) local radio station WDEA AM 1230 is holding a contest on their website. 

Who is the Hottest TV Newswoman in Maine?

It's the station's online poll that let's listeners vote as often as they want (more hits to the station's website that way) and pick who that think is the state's hottest news babe.

Not every station is happy to see the online poll. WCSH has released this statement about the contest: 

"WCSH6 and WLBZ2 do not condone the current WDEA poll involving our reporters’ names and images. We made it clear before the start of this poll that our newsrooms will not participate and that our individual reporters do NOT want to be involved. We find it demeaning to our reporters and the other journalists used in this contest."

Of course you just know some of those same anchors will still be busy clicking their mouse to rack up votes from themselves.