The story of Philadelphia anchorwoman Alycia Lane gets stranger and stranger. Her first call upon release from custody after punching a NYPD officer was, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, to Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania governor told the paper, she did it to "make sure he knew her side of the story because he is an opinion-maker and runs around in influential circles." And "I think she knew better than to ask him to intervene." He also stressed that the office was not going intervene in the matter. To us it seemed like a bit more bad judgment on the part of Lane.
Lane is currently on a bit of extra vacation from her anchor duties at KYW, the CBS owned station in Philadelphia, and the station is looking into the matter. Since almost every contract has some sort of morality clause, she may not return to television there or possibly anywhere else. The Philadelphia newspaper also reported that she may have been excised from the station’s holiday special and station promos while her co-anchor, former WABC anchorman and host of Access Hollywood Larry Mendte, will anchor solo for the rest of the month.
Much to our surprise no gay or lesbian groups seemed to have complained about Lane’s comments yet, however the Post may have sweetened a quote in their initial reporting, by adding the word “bitch” to their version of what Lane said making it seem a bit more worse than it actually was.
The criminal complaint has Lane “stating in substance” to Police Officer Bernadette Enchautegui: " I don't give a fuck who you are I am a reporter you fucking dyke." While the Post reported their source saying that Lane said: "I don't care that you're a cop - dyke bitch!"
It would seem that she was accurately quoted in calling Officer Enchautegui a dyke, but not a bitch. In light of the recent Page Six scandal, we would expect a bit more thorough fact checking and a bit more vigilance.
And finally our sister site Phillyist has found a brilliant video of a WNBC report from yesterday that has reporter Rosanne Colletti reading out a bleeped version of Lane’s comments.
Photo from Triborough on flickr.
