Saturday, August 4, 2007

UPDATE: L.A. Reporter Suspended Over Affair


The L. A. Times reports that Telemundo reporter and anchor Mirthala Salinas, who has admitted to have an (ongoing?) affair with Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa, has been suspended for two months without pay by her station. In addition, three of her supervisors were disciplined for their bad judgment in handling her situation.

Salinas began her affair with Villlaraigosa sometime in 2005, while she covered the political beat for Telemundo's Los Angeles affiliate, KVEA-TV Channel 52. Of course, much of what she covered involved the Mayor. Last fall, she told her supervisors at the station about the affair. They took her off the political beat and made her one of the station's anchors.
It was in that role that she announced, in June, that Villaraigosa and his wife Corina were divorcing. That straw broke the camel's back.

Salinas's story was paired with that of Chicago TV reporter Amy Jacobson, who was filmed by the backyard pool of a man suspected of murdering his wife -- a story Jacobson was "covering." The confluence of events prompted Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz to write about "bikini journalism" earlier this summer.

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