BriWi Makes First Public Appearance Since Suspension

Suspended NBC Anchor Brian Williams made a small step back into the public eye.

On Saturday Night, BriWi showed up at a fundraising event for his old high school, Mater Dei High School in New Monmouth, New Jersey.

The school is trying to raise money to keep its doors open. 

"This is Mater Dei. It's been a very, very important part of my life," Williams said. "I had four great years here. I did not know it then, but it was the last degree I'd ever earn." 

"He had a lot of friends he went to school with," fundraiser co-chair Maria Buzzanco said to the newspaper "He was happy to come back to the Shore Casino because he went to proms there. He was greeted with warm hugs. Everyone was telling him how much they support him as well, and thanked him for coming.

Williams did not discuss his proms at the old high school, but we're sure if he did, he would take about great times with his date, Morgan Fairchild.  

Police Search "Fuck it, I Quit" Reporter's Cannabis Club

When Reporter Charlo Greene said "fuck it, I quit" and walked off the air at KTVA in Alaska, she did so to run the Alaska Cannabis Club full time.

On Friday, the Police came knocking and they had a search warrant in hand.

KTVA reports that the Anchorage Police Department says it is investigating the Alaska Cannabis Club for criminal activity.

Greene (real name Charlene Egbe) and at least six others looked on as authorities served a search warrant and combed through the Alaska Cannabis Club on Gambell Street Friday afternoon. The warrant also includes a Dodge Dakota and Jeep Liberty, both of which were impounded by APD.

The warrant, which names Egbe and Peter Lomonaco, says that at the clubhouse and in the two vehicles “there is now being concealed property, namely: Marijuana, in cultivation or harvested, resins, oils, hashish or other THC derivatives, concentrates, edibles and equipment used in the extraction of THC.”

The warrant also includes “items relating to illegal transactions” — such as computer records and bank statements — forfeitable firearms, and money “used in or intended for use in or derived from trafficking in controlled substances.”

“I saw them uproot a couple of marijuana plants. They took some bongs and pipes and phones and computers and that’s pretty much it,” Greene said on scene as bags of items were carried out by police.

According to Greene, the residence is home to multiple medical marijuana card holders, as well as the club.

“This is basically a medical marijuana dispensary,” Greene said. “We don’t sell any recreational marijuana, we don’t sell any medical marijuana. This is a place for card holders to come and share their own cannabis.”

APD spokeswoman Jennifer Castro said they received reports “of the illegal sale of marijuana and other derivatives” at the clubhouse.

What KTVA did not report was that Greene used to be a Reporter at the station. 

Of course they didn't. 

Remembering Lisa

FTVLive told you the sad on Saturday that WABC Reporter Lisa Colagrossi had died suddenly. 

Colagrossi was returning from covering a story on Thursday, when she suffered a brain hemorrhage.

She was rushed to the hospital, but after a brief stay she passed away. She was only 49 years old.

Her co-workers and those that used to work with her were shocked that she died so young and so suddenly.

Colagrossi started at WABC the day after 9/11/2001. One of her Producers back then was Dave Bloch, who now works for ABC News. 

Bloch posted this tribute about Colagrossi on Facebook:

I’m going to ask for about 300+ words of your time.

Lisa Colagrossi showed up at Eyewitness News at the worst time anyone could imagine. Right after 9/11. Honestly, I don’t even remember her being hired. She just... appeared on my show one day.

We sent her down to Ground Zero, still that fiery hell pit that burned for 100-days.

On November 12th, 2001, Lisa had just finished her last live shot for the morning show when American Airlines Flight 587 went down in Belle Harbor, Queens. Two months and a day later. She and her crew had just packed up when all hell broke loose -- again. Somehow they tailgated their way to the scene... attached to the bumper of whatever FDNY truck was in front of them...blowing through the toll gate. Two seconds later everything was on lockdown. Nobody on or off Manhattan. Lisa and her crew, the only ones on the scene. Eight million raw nerves wondering what in God’s name just happened. After all this time, I’m pretty sure I have those details right.

So there was Lisa, the Florida transplant, a reporter none of us really knew. Jesus, we were still trying to figure out how to spell her last name. Standing on top of the live truck like she had been working for us forever. We were in the control room and realized, okay, she’s got this. And she did it over and over again.

A damn good reporter, a fine anchor, and if we ever butted heads (and that only happened a couple times in a dozen years) I hope there were never hard feelings. She came in to work at the worst hours of the day, and on many occasions was still turning stories 14-hours later.

She loved her kids, she loved the Rangers.
Someone said it before me: her March Madness brackets were a thing of beauty, picks based on her own...”unique” system.

The last Tweet that Colagrossi sent was a reply to a viewer:

The viewer was still feeling the emotions later when he tweeted:

Louisville News Anchor Has More Surgery

WAVE (Louisville) News Anchor Dawne Gee underwent the knife again this weekend.

Gee underwent surgery Saturday morning to remove a tumor from her stomach. Word is the surgery went well during the operation and she is recovering at this time.

Doctors said there was a slight chance the tumor is cancerous, so doctors wanted to remove it immediately.

As you may recall, Gee took a leave of absence from WAVE News late last year to recover from kidney cancer surgery.

She has been open about her many other health battles, including a series of benign brain tumors, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Gee expects to be off the air for a few weeks while she recovers.

H/T WAVE

Did NY Anchor get Caught Manspreading on the Subway?

A NY commuter snapped a picture of NY1 News Anchor Pat Kiernan catching a quick nap on the subway.

Some say Kiernan might have been manspreading (Google it, it's a NY thing).

"I'll concede there was a bit of a 'manspread'... but my backpack is on my lap and I've clearly made the adjacent seat available," Kiernan told Gothamist. He added that the photo was taken "late morning on the L train" during his 8-minute commute. 

We could get into the whole is this really manspreading or not? But, anyone living outside New York could care less and to be quite honest so could we. 

Bumped Up in Little Rock

KARK has bumped up Shannon Miller to the weekend Anchor gig.  

News Director Austin Kellerman announced the move in an email to staff.

“Shannon is a longtime Nexstar employee across three markets who has made a big impact since joining our stations. I’m confident she’ll do an excellent job in this spot,” Kellerman wrote.

Miller joined KARK in August after a stint as a morning Anchor at KOLR in Springfield, Missouri. She previously worked at KNWA in northwest Arkansas.

The weekend anchor position was previously held by Brittney Johnson, who left the station earlier this month for a job at ABC affiliate WSOC in Charlotte.

H/T Arkansas Business 

CNN's Stelter Takes More Shots at Fox News

Wow! Mediaite took there nose out of CNN Media Critic......errrrrrr....Correspondent Brian Stelter's butt long enough to criticize Jeff Zucker's mouthpiece. 

Mediaite says that for those that want to take some shots at Fox News, they need to look no further than  CNN’s Reliable Sources.

The website writes that CNN, of course, is a competitor of Fox in a mostly-lopsided cable news race, and therefore has the motive to make the network running ahead of it look bad or stupid. Reliable has been on the air since 1992, and is currently hosted by longtime Fox critic and former New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter.

In looking at transcripts of the program on a week-to-week basis since the beginning of this year, Reliable has featured segments critical of Fox News in eight of the 10 shows it has aired.

Yesterday, Reliable Sources featured Mickey Kaus, a former columnist for The Daily Caller who quit the publication after being told by its founder (Fox & Friends Weekend host Tucker Carlson) that Fox criticism wasn’t allowed.

Betsy Rothstein writes the Daily Caller called bullshit on Stelter and his "reporting" yesterday.  She took to twitter with more than a few pointed comments:

But the ultimate swipe against Stelter had to come Mediate that said that Stelter and his Fox News shots is morphing into Keith Olbermann.

Ouch!

H/T The Cable Game  

Larry King's Wife Takes Swipe at Piers Morgan

There hasn't been a Twitter fight between Larry King and Piers Morgan in awhile, but that might soon change.  

King's wife Shawn has given her thoughts about Piers Morgan and she pretty much nails it.  "He is just kind of a jerk in my opinion. Larry didn't say that I did," she said.

"That is how I feel: I think he is a jerk."

"Frankly I think Piers just likes to have his name in the news. It doesn't matter why. He just wants it to be out there — good or bad," she added.

Look for the thin skinned Morgan to respond soon.

Stay tuned...

H/T NY Daily News

That Story Sounds Very Familiar

While many idiots are yelling FHRITP to any live TV camera that they can, one guy showed a little more talent in his prank.

A guy named "John Strickland" phoned into C-SPAN to discuss Congress' potential role in negotiations with Iran (i know, exciting stuff).

But John, who said he was from Bel Air California, story sounded very familiar. If you were a fan of The Fresh Prince you might recognize John's story.

Let's go to the video: 

Is Anderson Cooper's BFF Headed to 'The View'?

Many feel that ABC will soon pull the plug on the struggling 'The View,' but the show might have one Hail Marry left to throw.

Word is that ABC is looking to put Anderson Cooper's BFF Kathy Griffin on the show. 

The NY Daily News writes that Griffin made a big impression on “The View’s” producers as a guest last Monday. They’ve now batted around the idea of asking the comedian to consider a regular guest-hosting gig, which might lead to a full time position on the show, Confidenti@l has learned.

“She was great and has Whoopi (Goldberg)’ s backing. Whoopi loves Kathy,” says our insider at the talk show. “ ‘The View’ would be a perfect fit if Kathy wanted to fly to New York weekly. It’s a Monday-through-Thursday job and she can tour on the weekends, the best two nights to sell tickets.”

Another insider tells us Griffin — banned by another ABC show, “Live with Kelly and Michael,” after she insulted executive producer Michael Gelman — is welcome back to “The View” anytime and is “a great friend of the show.”

With or without Griffin the show is going to die.

Just saying.... 

WABC Reporter Dies Suddenly

WABC Reporter Lisa Colagrossi was returning from covering a story on Thursday, when she suffered a brain hemorrhage.

The station now sadly reports that Colagrossi has died at age 49.

It started out as a normal day, with Colagrossi doing what she did so well, reporting stories and going live. She started working at WABC the Sunday after the World Trade Center disaster. 

Colagrossi leaves behind a husband and two sons.

Here is how WABC covered her sudden death:

Bernard Goldberg: Fox News is Bias

Fox News contributor Bernard Goldberg admitted something that few inside the walls of FNC will rarely do. He said that Fox News is biased when it comes to conservative issues. 

He also admitted that water is wet and the sky is blue. 

Goldberg told Bill O’Reilly he needs to understand that the liberal media may be biased, but so is Fox News, with many of its regular faces turning a blind eye to conservative problems.

“Liberal news organizations are going to play down liberal screw-ups,” he said, “but Fox News is gonna play down conservative screw-ups.”

Of course, on cue, Bill O'Reilly objected to that statement. Imagine that?

O’Reilly said that his show  is fair to all and that he brings fair, independent-minded people onto the O'Reilly Factor. He did not point out that he often yells at these people and calls them pinheads. 

To his credit Goldberg stood his ground on the FNC bias and even got O'Reilly to admit that, “No operation is perfect.”

Fuck it! We'll do it Live!

H/T Mediaite 

MSNBC's Phil Griffin: I Would Like to Bring Olbermann Back

Most feel that Phil Griffin is a dead man walking as the boss of MSNBC. 

Sources tell FTVLive that new NBC News head Andy Lack will likely hand Griffin his walking papers sometime next month.

So, for his part, Griffin is in "hail mary" mode and willing to try just about anything to get MSNBC's dismal ratings up.

MSNBC sources tell FTVLive that Griffin has openly suggested to staff that he would like to bring back Keith Olbermann into MSNBC prime time. 

It's not likely that will ever happen, but it shows you just how desperate Griffin is right now.

Stay tuned.... 

Sources: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is Furious with Chuck Todd

Sources tell FTVLive that MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is "apoplectic over" Chuck Todd's moral equivalence of Fox News and MSNBC prime time. 

Todd was on The Mike O'Meara show, when he said, “I think advocacy journalism, sort of the Fox and what MSNBC primetime, those models, that hasn’t been healthy for politics. It’s just not healthy for it. It all goes to one of the explanations why we don’t persuade people anymore.”

Word is that MSNBC staffers are pissed at Todd's takedown of cable news and no one is more mad at Mr. Meet The Press than Maddow. 

Sources say that Todd is furiously backpedaling and trying to apologize to Maddow... who is having none of it.

Meet The Press loses in DC

Speaking of Chuck Todd....

It seems much longer, but Todd recently marked his six month anniversary at the helm of NBC’s Meet the Press.

The good news? With Todd on board, things have seemed to have calmed down compared to when David Gregory hosted the show.

The bad news? The ratings. In DC,  the home market of Meet The Press FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace beat the NBC show on both March 8th and March 15th, 2015.

In DC, FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace’s 39,000 households trumped NBC’s Meet the Press’ 34,000 households according to Nielsen. 

Murder Suspect Worked at CNN/HLN

Jill Blackstone, a producer to many TV talk shows such as Jerry Springer, Sally Jessy Raphael and others, has been arrested for the murder of her deaf and partially blind sister in San Fernando, Calif. Three dogs are also found dead. 

When the news broke of her arrest, some people that worked at CNN were not surprised. They used to work with her. 

Blackstone worked as a Senior Producer on HLN’s Dr. Drew Show from June to December in 2012.

The Daily Caller writes that CNN did wind up firing her after six months. But not before they say she made life a living hell for her coworkers.

“She made that show a living hell,” said a source, who vividly recalled her using the N-word. “I never talk to HR. I wrote a letter to HR — she’s that psycho.”

To say she was universally hated while she was there is an understatement. “Ugh ugh ugh,” a source said, growing animated just remembering what it was like to work with her. “Honest to God, I don’t hate anybody, but I hate her. She’s a psychotic, racist little bitch.”

According to the TMZ report, Blackstone phoned in the deaths herself. Her sister was found dead in a garage, dead from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning. There was a suicide note, but police found the whole thing suspicious. Still, Blackstone was released Wednesday afternoon.

The DA has reportedly dropped the charges. But LAPD continues its investigation.