Carole Simpson: Why Was I Not Invited to the Party?

Former ABC Anchor Carole Simpson is pissed that she wasn't invited to Barbara Walters on air goodbye.

Simpson took to Facebook to voice her displeasure and hints that ABC didn't invite her because she is an angry black woman.

Simpson writes on Facebook:

I wonder why I wasn't included among the two dozen network newswomen and anchors who feted Barbara Walters at a private party and then on "The View?" We both worked at NBC and ABC at the same times. She is my idol and I believe she knows that. At first I was very sad and now I am very mad. I guess ABC News, after my 24 years there, still considers me persona non grata. The black woman anchor, who had to speak her mind for herself and others, is erased from ABC history. I will say a solo goodbye to Barbara and ABC news can just...

She didn't finish that thought, but I think most of us can guess what she was going to say.

Station Says They will Be More Careful not to Show Dicks On the Air

On Friday, FTVLive told you that KWWL in Waterloo gave viewers an eyeful  on a package in a package about Veterans.

The station was doing a story on Vietnam Vets. Using and old still photo in the story, no one noticed that the guy in the lower middle of the picture, didn't do a very good job of covering up.

News Director Dan Schillinger tells FTVLive that they will be more careful next time. He gave us this statement:

Due to an editing oversight, an inappropriate image appeared briefly in our 5:00 pm newscast Tuesday, May 13th.

We are conducting an immediate review with staff and will implement corrective measures to ensure this does not happen again.

We deeply regret this mistake and apologize to our viewers.

Ummmmm.....Did you Check out That Guy's Shirt?

The big news in Indianapolis is that the Indian Pacers are taking on Lebron James and the Miami Heat in the NBA Playoffs.

The Pacers beat Miami 107-96 in game one was the big news on WRTV in Indianapolis.

Reporter Ebone (is that pronounced  E-Bone or Ebony?)  Monet when live from outside for the post game. 

But maybe, just maybe, Ebone, the Photographer or the Producer might have wanted to move the guy on the left of the screen with the "Fuck Lebron" t-shirt on, the back of the live shot.

Just saying. 

Maybe She just Sucked at her Job

She was a woman.

She demanded to be paid as much as the guy she replaced.

Or maybe she just sucked at her job.

More in ScottLand 

Huh? Reporter Outraged that More Reporters Aren't Covering Her Story

Usually, when a Reporter is covering a big story and no other press is there, the Reporter is happy to have the story to themselves.

But, KSDK (St. Louis) Reporter Leisa Zigman is not happy that the "big" media is ignoring a story that she has been covering.

Zigman writes on KSDK's website "Sex discrimination. If it doesn't happen in New York, it's not news."

She says "I am sitting in Division 10 of the historic Civil Courts Building in downtown St. Louis, waiting for, arguably, one of the most important verdicts in the country. No national reporter is present. I'm surprised, and angry."

Francine Katz a former executive is at Anheuser- Busch is suing the company because she felt like she was discriminated against and paid less because she was a female.  

Leisa Zigman

Although the verdict wasn't in, it appears that KSDK's Zigman had her mind made up as to how the verdict should go. "For the past three weeks, I have watched a case that ripped a scab from a wound that has been festering in our national psyche for 50 years: equal pay for equal work," she writes.

But what angers her more is that no other media seems to be interested in the case as she is.

In fact she says that she "pitched" the story to a number of other media outlets.

She writes, "Before the case began I told my friends at CNN and NBC they should cover it. I pitched Huffington Post and Huffpo women, Forbes women, Drudge, and Bloomberg. You name it, I pitched it. You would think Rachel Maddow would have been an easy sell. Her people didn't think so."

Since when does a Reporter start pitching news stories? Is she a Reporter or a PR person? 

Also, it sure does not appear that she was objectively looking at the story. Sounds like her mind is made up that it was sex discrimination plain and simple. 

Maybe we are getting old, but I rather have a Reporter that reports and doesn't pitch stories to other media outlets. 

She finishes her rant by saying "The national media should be ashamed."

Ummmmm....I'm not sure they are the only ones that should be Leisa.

Just saying.... 

Judge Denies Public Defender for Former Philly Sportscaster

Philly Sports Anchor Don Tollefson's income has taken a big hit since he left WTXF Fox29 in 2008, when he was making nearly $5,000 a week.

The ex-sportscaster is now pulling in about $2,654 a month in disability payments. He's got $1,200 in his checking account, and a $100,000 balance of credit with his bank that he's months behind on paying. His house in Wyndmoor, Montgomery County, is $75,000 under water.

But according to the judge, Tollefson still isn't poor enough for a public defender. Tollefson must hire private counsel to defend against charges he sold people more than $100,000 in bogus travel packages to sporting events.

Tollefson, 61, applied for the services of a public defender late last month, submitting several financial documents. They included the $100,000 line of credit balance with his bank, as well as his wife's income, which is about $5,800 a month or $70,000 a year. Tollefson wrote that his gig at Fox was his last full-time job. He doesn't have any stocks, bonds or trusts to his name, according to paperwork he filed with the court.

Tollefson, who did not return a phone call or e-mail seeking comment, spent decades as a sportscaster in Philadelphia, mostly at the Fox station and WPVI. The Bucks County District Attorney's Office arrested him in February on felony fraud charges alleging a widespread travel-package scheme that had an impact on more than 100 people across the Delaware Valley.

About half the packages were for Eagles road games. But other events included Super Bowls, Phillies spring training trips, and the Kentucky Derby, police said. The packages were sold with the understanding that some of the money would go to a charity, such as one of Tollefson's organizations for children or an outside foundation.

When he was arrested this winter, Tollefson hired two high-powered attorneys from separate firms, Michael McGovern and Ray McHugh. But by March those lawyers were gone. They were replaced by a public defender, who successfully filed a petition to allow Tollefson to leave the Bucks County prison for a drug treatment facility.

Tollefson told a judge in February that he had been sober for 131 days.

Tollefson will need the services of a private lawyer in a matter of weeks. A preliminary hearing to review his case is scheduled for May 29 in Warminster District Court.

H/T Philadelphia Inquirer 

Out the Door and Replaced in Houston

KPRC weekend Morning Meteorologist Idoline Peralez worked her last day at the station this Weekend.

According to an internal memo, Peralez is taking her career in a different direction.

She is being replaced by Britta Merwin (pictured) who formerly worked at KCRA Sacramento.  

Merwin left KCRA in 2011, was seven months pregnant at the time and said she was moving to Florida to be with her husband, who was training to be a Coast Guard pilot.

Merwin previously worked at NBC Weather Plus and CNBC. Other stops in her local TV news career include KNSD San Diego and News 12 New Jersey.

H/T Mike McGuff

Changes, Comings and Goings in Huntsville

Some changes are happening on air and off at WAAY in Huntsville.

Here is the internal memo that was sent out to the staff from GM Paul Dughi and obtained by FTVLive:

TO:  WAAY31 Team
 
A new role for Jillian and new additions to the WAAY31 news team:
 
Jillian Pavlica, WAAY31 Weekend Anchor, is taking on an important new role.  In June, she will be moving to the morning newscast to anchor the Digital Content desk.  She will be reporting on breaking news, developing stories, internet trends and videos, and be a major contributor to the morning news.  She will join Erin, Ari, and new co-anchor Justin McFarland in the studio.  This move will happen sometime in the middle of June.
 
Demetria McClenton will be joining the WAAY news team as Weekend Anchor/Reporter.  Demetria has been the morning anchor at WTVY in Dothan, AL for the past four years while also teaching as an Adjunct Professor at Wallace Community College.  Prior to that she was a Production Assistant at FOX/Chicago.  She has a B.S. in Business Administration from Florida A&M and a Masters in Communications from Governors State.  Demetria starts June 17th.
 
In case you missed the previous announcements, here they are:
 
Jennifer Hardy, News Director, starts June 2nd (and maybe a few days before that depending on travel).  She’s currently ND at KOLO in Reno, NV.

Isaac Williams, Weekend Meteorologist, has been working part-time on the weekends while getting his Master’s Degree.  He graduates this weekend (Congrats, Isaac!) and starts full-time with us on May 19th.

Liz Cosgrove joins the team as 9pm FOX54 Meteorologist and WAAY31 Tech beat reporter on June 2nd.  Liz is currently the AM & Noon Meteorologist at KIDK in Idaho Falls.

Justin McFarland, AM Co-Anchor, joins us June 9th (right after his wedding!).  Justin is currently reporter/fill-in anchor at FOX in Nashville… and an Oakwood grad.

Sadly, we have a couple of departures as well:
 
Lillian Lalo, WAAY31 Morning Reporter, will be leaving us on May 30th to join her husband who took a job in Birmingham. 

Kalie Lanford, WAAY31 Reporter, is leaving June 4th to head back home.  Thanks Lillian and Kalie for all the hard work.  You will be missed.

Stay tuned!  We have more reinforcements coming soon!

Paul Dughi  
VP/General Manager 

Bumped up the Food Chain in Salt Lake

Word out of Salt Lake City is that KSL has named Chris Moore as the station's new News Director.

More was the Executive Producer at KSL. 

AT&T Agrees to Buy DirecTV

Over the weekend AT&T agreed to buy satellite TV provider DirecTV for $48.5 billion, or $95 per share, a deal both companies described as transformational as they seek to take on cable companies and online video providers, delivering content to multiple screens on living room TVs, PCs, tablets and mobile phones.

With 5.7 million U-verse TV customers and 20.3 million DirecTV customers in the U.S., the combined AT&T-DirecTV would serve 26 million.

That would make it the second-largest pay TV operator behind a combined Comcast-Time Warner Cable, which would serve 30 million under a $45 billion merger proposed in February.

In other words, less companies, less competition, your cable bill will be going up. 

Happy Monday. 

Taking a Shot at the Boss

Former ET Producer Heidi Clements, right, and Executive Producer Linda Bell Blue, left.

TV insiders are tittering over a new novel by former “Entertainment Tonight” producer Heidi Clements, which some say surreptitiously dishes on behind-the-scenes drama with Linda Bell Blue, executive producer of “ET” for 19 years.

Other characters in the humor book may be based on Sharon Osbourne, Lara Spencer and Jane Seymour, sources speculated.

Page Six says that in “Welcome to Heidi,” Clements — who was Blue’s No. 2 at “ET” until 2011 — writes in the voice of a TV producer character who’s “run right out of the Valley” by her boss, “a 50-something plastic-surgery addict who was so overcome with jealousy of me that she went mental.”

In a chapter called “The Devil Wears Lululemon,” our heroine explains, “Every day at work was an adventure in insanity,” working for “a peroxide-blond dictator” who was “about as warm and fuzzy as a porcupine popsicle” and “loved when employees called her ‘Mommy.’

“She actually loved to scream and yell at people, and the bigger the crowd that was watching — the better,” pens Clements. Rewards were “very expensive gifts. I got two Chanel handbags and a Louis Vuitton suitcase. Blood luggage, I call it.”

After the protagonist is promoted to the unnamed show’s “Number Two” job, she’s constantly threatened with demotion, and her boss explains: “I want you to tell me the truth but . . . I want you to talk to me like a wounded baby girl.”

The heroine says, “Getting called into the bathroom [for a meeting] . . . was everyone’s worst nightmare. Faces would turn to stone and you would follow her into that dark abyss.”

When the boss blows up at a Spencer-like anchor for daring to wear beige to the Met Ball, the anchor pleads, “But Gucci made it.” The boss rages from her LA studio, “I don’t care if Jesus made it!” The heroine quits her job during a dramatic blowup behind the scenes of the Prince William-Kate Middleton nuptials — which “ET” hired Seymour and Osbourne to cover.

Clements is now co-executive producer of ABC Family’s “Baby Daddy.” A rep for “ET” declined to comment.

The irreverent book also tackles topics including dating, aging and the main characters’ wild days living in New York.

Longtime Big Easy Anchor Sets Date for Retirement

WDSU has finally set the date for longtime Anchor Norman Robinson's retirement.

Robinson will deliver his final 6 p.m. newscast on May 30. The station says that Robinson will continue his relationship with WDSU  through periodic appearances, beginning with a featured role in the 2014 Children’s Hospital Telethon, taking place May 31 and June 1 and broadcast on WDSU. 

“As I look back over my life, I can’t help but think that I’ve come a long way from Toomsuba, Mississippi,” said Robinson. “I am filled with bittersweet emotions, but happy to turn the page to a new chapter in my life. Most of all I have been lucky enough to fulfill my lifelong dream to become a news anchor in the city I love. For that, I am most grateful."

Ummmmm.....

Word is that KWWL in Waterloo gave viewers an eyeful in a package about Veterans.

Insiders say that the station was doing a story on Vietnam Vets, using and old still photo in the story.

But it appears, no one looked very closely at the guy in the bottom middle of the picture.

Oops!

Stalker of NY Reporter is Unfit for Trial

The wack job that was arrested for stalking WCBS Reporter Diane Macedo has been found unfit to stand trial.

Lawyers for Richard Pagani, 30, were handed the results of recent exams by court doctors that the stalker was found not competent to proceed on attempted burglary and stalking charges.

Pagani was arrested April 14 for the creepy campaign against the CBS New York reporter for a series of Facebook messages and visits between July 2012 and April 15.

“hey i could real lie use that ur there for me i havent been in a relation ship in like ten years, not a date or sex, nothen," he wrote in an error-laden message from July 2012.

In another unsettling missive, he sent a photo of himself watching her on TV, apparently with superimposed hearts coming out of his eyes.

“I’m surprised my cock didn’t fall out of my pants when I saw you on television,” he wrote with a series of photos to Macedo.

The weirdness reached a peak when Pagani allegedly followed her while she was covering the funeral for NYPD Officer Dennis Guerra last month. He allegedly banged on the window of the news van.

He walked away but the attempt to confront her was followed up with a Facebook rant.

Pagani is being ordered held without bail. He’ll next appear in court on May 29 for prosecutors to say whether they’ll confirm him as unfit.

If he’s formally deemed unfit, he’ll be committed to a state psych facility.

His lawyer, Benjamin Yu, said Pagani has a history of mental illness.

"I think the court came to the right result based on his long history of bipolar disorder," Yu said. 

H/T NY Daily News

New Anchor Hire in San Antonio

It took a while....

WOAI has finally gotten around to filling their open anchor job.

Five months after waving goodbye to Elsa Ramon, WOAI welcomes a new Anchorwoman with, coincidentally, the same initials: Evy Ramos.

The Express-Journal says that the bilingual Ramos, who comes to San Antonio from the top-rated evening shows in Fresno, California, will partner with Randy Beamer on the 6, 6:30 and 10 p.m. newscasts.

Her first day will be Monday, said WOAI general manager John Seabers. Ramos, who was born in Mexico, is  a “very smart and accomplished, must-see talent,” Seabers said of his hire. During auditions here, he added, she exhibited lots of chemistry with Beamer.