弗兰克·萨默维尔市,一位资深电视新闻播音员suspended from KTVU following a dispute over coverage of the Gabby Petito homicide case, said Tuesday that he believes he is not returning to the station.
Photo courtesy of KTVU / Photo courtesy of KTVUFrank Somerville资深电视新闻播音员暂停KTVU following a dispute over coverage of the Gabby Petito homicide case, said Tuesday that he believes he is not returning to the station.
“My guess is that I’m not coming back to Channel 2,” Somerville told The Chronicle. “That’s just a guess. But I have no reason to think otherwise.”
Somerville, 63, said he has been on paid leave ever since he was disciplined in late September, after seeking to add a 46-second address about racial justice to the end of a broadcast story about Petito, a woman slain during a cross-country trip with her fiance, Brian Laundrie. Sourcesat the station said that a shortened version of Somerville’s proposed verbal “tag”appeared in a subsequent newscast script after a supervisor the station’s news director had nixed it.
Both Petito and Laundrie are white, and Somerville intended to highlight disparate reporting on missing persons cases, with the disappearance of people of color attracting less attention than cases involving white people, particularly white women.
The late journalist Gwen Ifill coined the phrase “missing white woman syndrome” to characterize the phenomenon.
While Somerville said he has not spoken with supervisors at the station, he predicts “they’re not bringing me back.” Somerville joined the station in 1991 and has become a recognizable Bay Area personality. Like the Gabby Petito case, his story went viral after news of his suspension surfaced — eveninspiring protests outside the station.
His suspension in September marked the second time this year that Somerville left the air. In June a spokesperson for Fox Television Stations, the Fox Corp. subsidiary that owns KTVU, said the anchor was going out on medical leave for two months after he slurred his words during a broadcast.
According to two station sources, he had already been disciplined shortly before the conflict over the tag, for voicing what the station deemed to be inappropriate political opinions on Facebook. Somerville had posted about the Texas law that bans almost all abortions and about the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Yet his thoughts on the Gabby Petito coverage tapped into a much larger debate that had reached a fever pitch online.
Some of Somerville’s supporters praised him for trying to interrogate his own station’s reporting, though others expressed dismay over the news anchor’s purported defiance of his bosses.
Days after the drama exploded on social media, George Holland, president of the Oakland branch of the NAACP, sharply criticized KTVU management, saying they should elevate Somerville’s commentary rather than edit it.
“We appreciate Mr. Somerville’s integrity and willingness to ask incisive questions that challenge those inside and outside his bubble,”Holland wrote in a statement.
A spokesperson for Fox Television Stations did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Somerville said he decided to speak out Tuesday morning after receiving a call from a local news blogger asking for an update on his situation.
“I really wanted to apologize to the workers,” Somerville said, referring to his colleagues at a news station where he apparently has not set foot in for weeks.
”工人们——作家、公关oducers, the editors and photographers — are the backbone of Channel 2,” Somerville added. “I just wanted to take a moment to apologize to them for the destruction this has caused.”
He said he hopes to return to broadcast journalism, perhaps in another market, and work for another three or four years.
“I’m not done,” he said. “I’m at the peak of my game.”
瑞秋天鹅is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email:rswan@sfchronicle.comTwitter:@rachelswan
