Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Suspended St. Louis Anchor Says He’s Been Fired

Larry Conners
Longtime St. Louis anchorman Larry Conners was fired from KMOV Wednesday after comments he made on Facebook about the Internal Revenue Service.

Conners called the KMOX1120 AM  newsroom around 3:20 pm Wednesday and said he had been terminated but refused to give an official interview.

Conners has hired an attorney.

KMOV TV President & GM, Mark Pimentel, issued this statement. 
“We regret to announce that Larry Conners is no longer a KMOV news reporter. Larry was a valued member of KMOV for a long time, and we will miss him. 
For KMOV, there is no higher cause than unbiased, objective news reporting. It is what our viewers expect and it is what we work very hard to deliver. We can accept no less. Larry is certainly entitled to his opinion, but taking a personal political position on one of the Station’s Facebook pages creates an appearance of bias that is inconsistent with important journalistic standards. Larry’s departure has nothing to do with the particular position he took, but it does have to do with our belief that his actions made it impossible for him to report for KMOV on certain political matters going forward without at least an appearance of bias. Bringing you accurate and unbiased reporting is the reason we exist.”
 Conners wrote last week that shortly after he interviewed President Obama and his wife in April of 2012, the IRS “started hammering” him. Conners did not explain how the IRS targeted him. See original posting, Click Here.

The Facebook comments drew a rebuke from KMOV’s parent company Belo Corp.

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