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Kind of wish everyone would do this. Suzanne Rico, who lost her job last week as morning co-anchor on Channel 2, distributed an open letter that clarifies how it happened. She says that she set her departure in motion with a letter to her agent in January out of a desire to do more than just read scripts off a teleprompter, and to spend more time with her children.
I write this letter from a beach chair, watching a squadron of brown pelicans dive-bombing the surf in front of me. This fairly deserted stretch of Mexican beach is not a bad place to lick my wounds after getting fired by KCBS-TV (Channel 2), where I have anchored the morning and midday newscasts for the past 7 1/2 years....When the management changed at Channel 2 at the end of last year, I believed there was an opportunity for positive change. My desire to be more involved in our news product, coupled with my exhaustion from a grueling 3 a.m. schedule over the last 8 years, led me to ask for a move off of mornings to a role that would allow me to contribute better to both my work and my family, including two small children. I knew that such a request might opt me right out of a job, and indeed, I did end up catching the axe as it made its first wide swing through the CBS-2 newsroom....There would be no positive change for me, at least in terms of my career with KCBS.
Instead, I went from news anchor to news nobody in the three minutes it took for new News Director Scott Diener to fire me. But as I walked out of the office for the last time, I felt free: free to get enough sleep, free to play with my kids without feeling exhausted, free to pursue other opportunities in which I can contribute in a more meaningful way.
Whole thing is posted at Franklin Avenue.
Previously on LA Observed:
Big day for newsroom carnage at KCBS/KCAL