I know it's debatable what he said and the sound quality here isn't great. But in these cases, reasonable people ought to give the poor kid the benefit of the doubt. The alternative -- that he's a blatant, crazy racist who was waiting to drop slurs along with a warming trend -- is simply nonsensical.
Yet any which way, in the twisted journalistic universe of KTNV General Manager Jim Prather, that qualifies for a summary firing and the total jeopardy of a young career but he'll stand "100 percent" behind a seasoned, experienced lead anchor who he acknowledged had leaked a story to sources and then offered to help them to mitigate the damage? Huh?
Also, it's Day Five of this. Where the hell is Nina Radeitch's public apology to her newsroom and the news-viewing public? Blair apologized immediately. And Ron Futrell, as we've said, didn't even get a chance to prove his innocence. But Nina? She's golden. And nobody has any idea why.
P.S. Blair seems to have recovered well. He's now a weatherman in Chico, Calif.
3 comments:
As I recall he said it twice, one of the times even making a remark such as, "A slip of the tongue, there" or something akin. This clip only showed one.
Didn't Norm write about this at the time? I seem to recall there being a rundown published in his column that would shed more light on this.
My recollection is Blair's remarks were worse than Steve recalls. It seemed like he thought he could sneak in a "funny" remark, and it backfired.
here's norm's account: http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Jan-17-Mon-2005/news/25678882.html
At the time of the incident, video was also shown of Blair and others giggling over the error. There was no mistake. It may have been a slip of the tongue, but he deserved to go as does dear Nina. There is little difference except she has breached integrity so badly that she should have been gone immediately, too!
Post a Comment