A television news anchor’s candid blog post in which she confessed to stealing mail, sleeping on the job and going on television without a bra has landed her in the unemployment line.
Alabama ABC affiliate WAAY-TV terminated their special investigative reporter Shea Allen over a ten-point blog post published last week.
Allen, who admitted that she is “frighten of old people” and “refuse to do stories involving them or the places the reside,” had second thoughts after publishing the blog post on Friday. After initially removing the post, it re-appeared with a disclaimer, presumably written by Allen herself, stating that she was “momentarily misguided about who I am and what I stand for.”
“To clarify, I make no apologies for the following re-post,” she wrote. “It’s funny, satirical and will likely offend some of the more conservative folks. But it isn’t fake and its a genuine look into my slightly twisted psyche.”
The incident was just the latest for a troubled reporter with a sordid past. According to an unnamed insider who spoke with the website Gawker, Allen had been arrested just two months after joining WAAY. She was also reprimanded for running a news story that contained profanity and racial epithets, and was disciplined after saying “fuck” on live television.
While some of the points in Allen’s blog post appear inconsequential — she admitted to reporting on television without wearing a bra and said she hated “the right side of my face” — admissions to stealing mail, sleeping while presumably on the job and manipulating sources who have a romantic admiration for her provoked station management to take action against Allen. On Monday, it was announced she had been released by the station.
Along with controversy comes fame from those who seek to capitalize on a misdeed for gain. No doubt a ratings ploy, Allen has received interview requests from NBC’s “Today Show,” the news magazine “Inside Edition” and several radio stations. But no word as of Tuesday on any job offers.
