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| Home Front: Politix |
| Bangor anchor team tender resignation on-air |
| 2012-11-21 |
| Its good to see there are some people with ethics. Which is why I am posting it. Perhaps Fox will pick them up.... BANGOR, Maine -- Citing a longstanding battle with upper management over journalistic practices at their Bangor TV stations, news co-anchors Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio announced their resignations at the end of Tuesday's 6 p.m. newscast. Michaels and Consiglio, who have a combined 12½ years' service at WVII (Channel 7) and sister station WFVX (Channel 22), shocked staff members and viewers with their joint resignations Tuesday evening. "I just wanted to know that I was doing the best job I could and was being honest and ethical as a journalist, and I thought there were times when I wasn't able to do that," said Consiglio, a northeastern Connecticut native who broke in with WVII as a sports reporter in April 2006. "No, that was unfortunate, but not unexpected," said Mike Palmer, WVII/WFVX vice president and general manager. "We'll hire experienced people to fill these positions sooner rather than later." I hear Katie Couric is available. She's perky and about as left as you can get. Perhaps team her up with Dan Rather. Neither reporter had told anyone of their decisions before Tuesday's newscast. Suprise! Both Michaels, 46, and Consiglio, 28, said frustration over the way they were allowed or told to do their jobs -- something that has been steadily mounting for the last four years -- became too much for them. "There was a constant disrespecting and belittling of staff and we both felt there was a lack of knowledge from ownership and upper management in running a newsroom to the extent that I was not allowed to structure and direct them professionally," Michaels explained. "I couldn't do everything I wanted to as a news director. There was a regular undoing of decisions." While choosing not to respond to individual complaints or charges, Palmer did take issue with the former anchors' characterization of management's role. "Upper management is not involved in the daily production of the news. Period," said Palmer, who had just finished posting online job opening ads in his office at 10 p.m. Tuesday. "We've made great changes over the last few months and are not slowing down." Michaels said there were numerous things that contributed to their decisions. "It's a culmination of ongoing occurrences that took place the last several years and basically involved upper management practices that we both strongly disagreed with," she explained. "It's a little complicated, but we were expected to do somewhat unbalanced news, politically, in general." Neither Michaels nor Consiglio would say what specific political leaning they were expected to adopt. Anyone care to guess? Consiglio, who also was executive producer, said the balanced journalistic approach they use for all their stories was sometimes frowned upon. Both reporters said they do not have anything lined up in terms of jobs in the media. Who is John Galt? "Broadcasting is a love for both of us," said Michaels. "We definitely will miss not being able to come into folks' living rooms and I hope there's no hard feelings from the community for this decision we've made, but we felt we had to do it." "The promise we're making to everyone is this locomotive is not stopping," he (Palmer) said. Even as it goes over the cliff at full steam. He said the stations' ownership already has seen its proactive approach pay off. "We've invested in the community and the community has rewarded us financially in the form of advertising revenue," he said. In other words we tell them what they want to hear and... |
| Posted by:CrazyFool |