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This is friggin outrageous
from the tribune:
Larry Mendte is back; WGN-Ch. 9 airing commentaries
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Like a boomerang or the proverbial bad penny, Larry Mendte keeps coming back.
The former WBBM-Ch. 2 newscaster whose obsession with one-time Philadelphia co-anchor Alycia Lane resulted in the loss of his job and a guilty plea on a federal felony charge for hacking her e-mail, is returning to television as a commentator for Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.’s WPIX-TV, and Chicago’s WGN-Ch. 9 plans to air some of his pieces.
Mendte, a one-time co-host of “Access Hollywood” who remains married to forgiving fellow Channel 2 alumna Dawn Stensland, is set to make his debut -- musing on golfer Tiger Woods, who’s had his own problems to overcome in public -- on tonight’s 5 p.m. Channel 9 news.
WPIX news director Bill Carey worked with Mendte (and Stensland) at WBBM in the 1990s.
The Philadelphia Daily News asked Carey if WPIX management had any hesitation in hiring Mendte, whose lawyer is working for a reduction in the charge against Mendte to a misdemeanor. "He's one of the top writer/producer/storytellers in television,” Carey told the paper. “Larry's work speaks for itself.”
Mendte, 53, has been off the air since June 2008.
Greg Caputo, Channel 9’s news director, indicated he believed viewers would appreciate the pieces. Teaser clips earlier on tonight's newscast showed Mendte, in a leather jacket, walking and talking and planting himself at what looked like a bar.
Mendte, who worked at WBBM from 1991 to ’96, pleaded guilty in 2008 to felony charges for breaking into Lane’s e-mail 537 times after she left the CBS station in Philadelphia where they had worked together.
The newsman, who leaked information that he gathered about Lane, was sentenced to six months of house arrest, three years probation, 250 hours of community service, psychiatric assessment, computer monitoring, a $5,000 fine and $100 special assessment.
Stensland told Philadelphia magazine in its January 2009 issue that she believed Mendte’s assertion that his relationship with Lane, who now works in Los Angeles, did not include sex even though it was inappropriately close and included kissing.
An anchor for Philadelphia’s Fox station, Stensland said Mendte bought Lane a gift from Tiffany for “more than $1,000” and that the sight of e-mails on her husband’s office computer between him and Lane with flirtatious subject lines in 2005 “broke my heart.”
Carey should understand second chances. He came to WPIX last November from Moline's WQAD-TV, where he had gone after leaving WFTS-TV in Tampa, Fla. He had made headlines in Florida when he was arrested and accused of burglary and battery after a hit-and-run car accident, which Carey insisted was a misunderstanding. Prosecutors decided not to file charges after the victim in Carey's case signed a waiver of prosecution and reached a civil settlement, according to the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.
Posted at 05:50:57 PM in CBS, Chicago, Fox Broadcasting, Newscasters, Television, Tribune Co., WGN-TV
This is hilarious, now the Tribune Company is going to use a convicted felon, borderline stalker and all around "bastion of the community" to give us his collective take on the news. This is up there when NBC 5 tried to have Jerry Springer do his commentary on their newscast in a sleeze effort to prop up the ratings of channel 5s local news. If memory serves Carol Marin resigned like instantly or had Springer canned or something like that.
Maybe Mendte can run a tech tips segment and tech us how to properly hack email, or can get an interview with the Erin Andrews stalker, or interview John Hinkley.
Cronkinte and Murrow are spinning in their graves...
later
sabu
Last edited by sabu on Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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