A Sacramento reporter who was fired following a segment in which he jumped on two cars and almost damaged a third at an auto show last weekend admits he made a few “dumb choices” during the broadcast.
In an email to viewer Hank Gallegos, former KMAX-TV (Channel 31) reporter Angel Cardenas apologized to anyone who may have felt offended by his “Good Day Sacramento” segment from the Sacramento International Auto Show on Sunday.
During the segment, Cardenas leaped onto the trunk of a classic Ford Thunderbird, struck the door of a second Thunderbird with the door of another car and leaped on top of a roped-off Ford hybrid SUV. The segment ended with Cardenas saying an unknown auto show worker asked him to come off the car.
“I’m going to get in trouble!” he said.
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Cardenas did get in trouble: In a Facebook post on Monday, show organizers said a conversation with station officials at KMAX-TV ended with the reporter’s dismissal. He had worked at the station off and on for the last eight years, according to a LinkedIn profile accessed by The Desk.
Early Monday morning, Cardenas admitted his actions during the segment were not well-thought out, but he asserted one viewer that the door incident was “a staged move.”
“I may have crossed the line a bit, but my intentions were never to disrespect the owners of the vehicles, although it seemed that way,” Cardenas wrote in a message to Gallegos first reported by BuzzFeed. “It was really a dumb choice on my part.”
Cardenas said he reached out to the car show’s organizers to offer a personal apology, according to the email. Stacey Castle Bascom, a producer with the auto show, told the New York Daily News the “astonishingly awful incident” was that of a “rogue reporter.” She said none of the cars in the TV segment were damaged.
KMAX-TV is owned by CBS Television Stations, a division of CBS Corporation.
