Posted on 06/04/2012 11:04:19 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
MARIETTA A former Weather Channel star is suing the Cobb-based channel and its new owners, claiming she was fired because of her military service.
Meteorologist Nicole Mitchell said Monday that her contract was not renewed in 2010 because the Weather Channels management didnt want to deal with the time she took off to serve in the Air Force Reserves, where she is a captain and Hurricane Hunter. While the channels former management, Norfolk, Va.-based Landmark Communications, embraced her role in the military, featuring her weather-related duties on the air, she said that started to change when the Weather Channel was sold in 2008 to NBC Universal and two private equity firms, Bain Capital and the Blackstone Group.
I dont think it was so much they were anti-military, Mitchell said after a news conference Monday at her attorneys office, a couple of miles from the Weather Channels headquarters. But we were taken over by outside companies that werent internally managing, if that makes sense. And so they never got to know some of us. Our managers werent meteorologists anymore, so I think it was just easier for them to feel inconvenienced than to look at the benefits.
The lawsuit states that in March 2009, NBC News Vice President Elena Nachmanoff called Mitchell in for a Sunday meeting with a hair consultant, even though Mitchell had a military service weekend scheduled for months. It claims that Nachmanoff was perceptibly angry that Mitchell didnt come in. After Mitchell missed a second weekend assignment for makeup consultation in June 2009, she was removed from Your Weather Today, which she had been on for four years.
(Excerpt) Read more at mdjonline.com ...
31 minute video of press conference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=801XlL3zETc&feature=youtu.be
“”LoRusso Law Firm Press Conference featuring Lance LoRusso, Esq, Capt Nicole Mitchell, Rebecca Sample, Esq, Professor Lynn Hogue — GA State Univ College of Law, COL Holahan — Reserve Officers Assn””
Yeah it was not long after Roker got there that I gave up on TWC.
After Zero moved in to the White Hut, Abrams came up with her own imitation of Moochelle’s “boob” belt emulating and idolizing the first wooky.
The Weather Channel website for local weather has really gone down the tubes lately. The page is all full of twittery, lifestyle crap, and advertisements, but try to find some real weather data (like barometric pressure) and you are SOL.
This might be harder to win. She was working on a contract basis and the network completed their contact with her and decided not to renew the contract. I think they have the right to not renew IF they fulfill the original contract fully. This will be interesting to see what happens. It stinks that she was not given another contract but isn’t that what a contract is all about? You sign for a certain timeframe and then you could be finished after it is done.
Not Guilty !
I have been wondering all these years what Al Roker’s credentials that establish him as a meteorologist...
From wiki:
Roker initially wanted to be a cartoonist. He was raised Catholic (in the faith of his mother) and graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan. He worked on several projects as a member of the school’s Cartooning & Illustration Club. He attended the State University of New York at Oswego where he double-majored in graphic design and broadcasting/journalism.
and
He holds an expired American Meteorological Society Television Seal, #238.
I remember, when I lived in DFW area WBAP radio had a real meteorologist who was one of the originals in Radio and TV (Harold - I can’t remember his last name). He said on air once, “I helped write the requirements for the AMS Seal of Approval, but they watered them down so much, I never bothered to apply for one.” Ever since then I have been suspect of anyone with the AMS Seal of Approval.
Amen.
“the (brainless) bean counters are ruining the WC.”
Plus airing MSNBC news. Obama gets more coverage than local weather.
“When I want the weather, I go to http://www.intellicast.com/."
Excellent...thanks for the link, I’ve been wanting to dump the WC.
Never going to click in to the Weather Channel again.
There are other sources for weather forecasts.
I tacked on to a tour of a National Weather Service facility once with my daughter who just got her BS in Meteorology (and is going into the Air Force). At one of the workstations a meteorologist was updating the weather report, and said, “Watch this.” The TV above his workstation was tuned to TWC. Almost immediately they started reading what he had just written, word for word. It was like that Jimmy Dean commercial. We all laughed.
Harold Taft. He was a treasure...
The man knew the weather up in the Fort Worth area, and wasn’t afraid to call it like he saw it.
If I were a hurricane she wouldn’t have to hunt too hard to find me.
For my local weather I go right NOAA site.
All you need is your town and zip code.
http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=buf
Here is the link to my town but you’ll get the idea.
Yes, I use that resource regularly, and also this one:
The commercial weather media like the Weather Channel, Accu-weather, and TV/radio weather all get their information directly from NOAA. When NOAA is wrong, the weather media always seems to be wrong too. But with NOAA, you don’t get the “storm-a-geddon” hype that the commercial sites seem to prefer.
I also like Weather Underground for the local, mostly privately-owned weather stations that feed real time data through their website. There’s one only a couple of miles from my house and plenty of others in the vicinity.
Thanks. I remember the morning show on WBAP with Hal Jay and Dick Siegel. Couldn’t remember Harold’s last name. Dick Siegel was a real character. He was supposed to be reporting on traffic from a helicopter and he’d be hovering over a pool in Arlington talking about how the female sunbathers looked. I remember he had a woman in the helicopter with him once and Hal Jay asked how things were on the morning drive, and the woman said, “right now Dick is driving my knee.”
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