Chicago TV reporter in hot water

You also have to consider the dichotomy between how this is seen in Chicago and how it's seen nationally. I checked a couple of Internet polls yesterday (I know the numbers aren't necessarily accurate), but after finding about 70 percent of AOL News readers demanding she be fired while a similar question on the Chicago Tribune site ran close to even, it can be reasonably assumed she has much more support in the Chicago market than she does in the nation as a whole.
Channel 5 may have whacked her and Channel 2 may have rubbed its hands with glee over taking her down (I still say they need to be held accountable for their actions, just as she has been), but if a good number of Chicagoans feel she got a raw deal, one of the other stations in town has a great opportunity.
If all else fails, she should use the attention to set herself up for a talk radio gig. In talk radio, to quote the great philosopher Eric Bischoff, controversy creates cash.

 

Oh, she'll land another TV job. The majority of the country had never heard of her until she made this major ethics/objectivity breach. Now she's on national news shows being aired all over the country.

Some station manager somewhere in this country will take a shot on her. She now has the type of name recognition she never would've attained with ethical conduct.

Unfair perhaps but reality in the TV world.

 

Amy Jacobson's ethics breach wasn't nearly as egregious as Mike Barnicle's. And Barnicle's not on welfare at the present time.

 

Police will be announcing this afternoon that Craig Stebic is being considered a "person of interest" in the disappearance of his wife and is now the focus of the investigation.

 

Does that mean a single thing in a strict legal sense?

Or is it just a wink-wink warning to morons such as TV mama?

 

Actually, I'm surprised it took them this long to say he was a "person of interest."

Someone help me with a legal question, though. Let's say they arrest this guy. Does Amy Jacobson's claim that she was over at his house as a journalist keep her from having to answer questions about what she was told and what she learned in any sort of conversation?

 

Just a theory: Maybe Channel 2 aired video leaked to them by police, which might have preferred to delay calling him a person of interest, and Amygate forced law enforcement's hand.

 

No. See also: Matt Cooper, Tim Russert and Judith Miller.

 

Point, if you're right (depends on Illinois reporter shield laws), losing her job may be the least of her problems now. When Channel 5 kicked her to the curb, the police probably saw the opportunity to put the squeeze on her. Unlike Cooper, Russert and Miller, she won't have a news organization standing behind her when she gets subpoenaed (which might also explain why she was whacked so quickly).
The authorities are probably dying to squeeze a reporter who doesn't have Time Warner, NBC or the New York Times Co. backing her up.
SOT: I'm pleased my thousandth post went to a matter of great social and political import.

 

It wasn't just the bikini. Here's the latest:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri_phil0713jul13,1,6030501.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

 

For those of you who don't want to log in to read the story, here's the Web site tease ...

Reporter briefed police on Stebic
WMAQ-Ch. 5 reporter Amy Jacobson was briefing police on her interaction with Craig Stebic without telling her bosses, which played a role in her ouster, sources say.