No WAAY: TV Reporter Fired for Personal Blog Disclosures

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Shea Allen, until last Friday an investigative reporter for Huntsville, Alabama, ABC affiliate WAAY-TV, this week appeared on The Today Show, Inside Edition and gave interviews to more than a half-dozen radio stations. Not bad exposure for a young reporter who attended Georgia's Kennesaw State University.

The problem is that Allen garnered national attention, not for her journalistic prowess, but because she was fired by her employer concerning a personal blog item she posted a week ago entitled Confessions of a Red-Headed Reporter.  Initially, she took down the blog post at the station's behest, but then re-posted it with the explanation: "The post was taken down because I was momentarily misguided about who I am and what I stand for." Channeling freedom of the press icon John Peter Zenger, she went on to say: "To clarify, I make no apologies for the following re-post. It's funny, satirical and will likely offend some of the more conservative folks. But it isn't fake and it's a genuine look into my slightly twisted psyche."

What exactly were the reporter's "confessions" or insights that prompted WAAY, which has not commented officially on the "personnel matter," to part ways with Allen? The revelations include:

• I've gone bra-less during a live broadcast and no one was the wiser.
• My best sources are the ones who secretly have a crush on me.
• I hate the right side of my face.
• I'm frightened of old people and I refuse to do stories involving them or the places they reside.
• I've taken naps in the news car.
• I've stolen mail and then put it back (maybe).

Some members of the nation's ever-growing perpetual rage industry are in a dither that Allen's First Amendment rights were trampled  by WAAY-TV in its ham-fisted effort to silence her message.  It could be an over-reaction on the station's part, or maybe the station was embarrassed that it was parading this on-the-airhead on its newscast as a broadcast journalist, the same description that has been applied to the late Peter Jennings and Bill Moyers, for example.

Even though there was no social media in his heyday, somehow the anchor-groupie staff of  "TUOL" can't imagine Walter Cronkite posting: "I'm doing the newscast commando-style tonight without my tighty-whities."

Allen follows in the footsteps of the 1-day wonder news anchor who appeared on Today as part of his national rehabilitation tour after he was fired for dropping an F-bomb and other expletives during his cringe-inducing, flop-sweaty inaugural newscast.

It's becoming less of a mystery as to why public disdain for journalists is on the rise.

CNN Favoring Curry?

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Ann Curry, unceremoniously dumped by The Today Show, but still under contract to NBC News, is looking to jump to CNN, where she would be reunited with former boss Jeff Zucker, Inquisitr.com and other outlets report.

According to the Inquisitr and Radar Online blogs, Curry is asking out of her contract with NBC, but the Peacock Network appears disinclined to grant her request.  Were she just to quit, she reportedly would be constrained by a non-compete clause from joining CNN. Sources report that her attorney could opt to bring a breach of contract suit based on her changed status. Meanwhile, NBC has been trying to arrange a lunch with Curry and Today Show host Matt Lauer, who has been excoriated by the public and blamed for Curry's ouster from Today.

Those keeping score may find it difficult to discern which networks are currying favor and favoring Curry.

CNN Zucker-Punched

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Jeff Zucker, 47, is the incoming president of CNN Worldwide, a new chapter in a career that has included stints as executive producer of  NBC's Today Show at age 26, head of NBC Universal and executive producer and co-owner of "Katie," Katie Couric's talkfest syndicated by Disney.

Zucker will take the helm of CNN in January, succeeding Jim Walton, who completes a nine-year run in the position. CNN, CNN International and HNL are among the entities Zucker will oversee, according to accounts in the New York Post, Bloomberg News and CNN. CNN reaches a 100 million U.S. households, but its prime-time programming attracts fewer than a third of the viewers who watch Fox News. Zucker will disassociate himself from "Katie," though don't be surprised if he tries to lure Her Royal Perkiness to CNN's Prime-time schedule.

He is an accomplished broadcasting executive, though during his five-year reign as NBC Universal's Majordomo, NBC has finished fourth in network ratings, trailing CBS, ABC, FOX and just edging out the Emergency Broadcast Signal. When Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice is a bright light of one's oeuvre, it's ok to feel a bit jumpy if you're a CNN shareholder.

Zucker will be right at home at CNN, which currently languishes in third place behind cable rivals Fox and MSNBC. It remains to be seen whether moves such as enlisting chef Anthony Bourdain to host a program will reverse CNN's recent series of missteps, that include Piers Morgan and  Parker & Spitzer.