Tuesday, July 10, 2007

It Was A Good Run

Cue Boyz II Men because it's the end of the road for Amy Jacobson at WMAQ. After 10 years on Chicago TV, Amy Jacobson left (or was fired) from Channel 5 in the wake of what has to go down as the worst judgment call ever in television journalism history. It is likely that her career is over at this point. While not quite at the level of "Horace Grant got Joan Esposito pregnant" hysteria, this story is sufficiently well-known to permanently kill any credibility she once had.

Chicago Tribune hack Eric Zorn wrote an online column about how Amy Jacobson is being unfairly treated because she is a woman. Zorn's conclusion is that AJ was merely developing a source for a story and that if any male reporter did the same thing, this would be a non-story. The real issue here is not Jacobson's gender, but that AJ took her young children to swim in a pool with a murder suspect. Either she's a lousy mother, an unethical journalist or both.

Although his columns would seem to confirm this, I hope Zorn has never taken a journalism class. Relationships which create actual or perceived conflicts of interst are contrary to every canon of journalistic ethics. This should be obvious to Zorn, and it casts doubt on the integrity of everyone at the Tribune.

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Pool Party

Credit Robert Feder in today's Sun-Times for breaking the story of WMAQ's Amy Jacobson taking her two children (ages 3 and 2) to swim in the backyard pool of Craig Stebic, estranged husband of the missing Lisa Stebic. According to the story, the purportedly married Jacobson took to the water in a two piece swimsuit while a WBBM camera caught the highjinks on tape from a neighboring yard. Feder writes that Jacobson was told to "get a lawyer." I'll go further and advise her to get a moving van, a real estate agent and a spruced up resume because this sounds like a wrap for the Pride of Mount Prospect.

At the time of this post, Amy Jacobson's profile on the WMAQ website was the most popular page on that site.

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Monday, July 09, 2007

Ice Cold Fashion

Can someone please get Channel 32's Amy Freeze a stylist? She's on TV for crying out loud.

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