Gabby Petito talks to the camera during a YouTube upload. YouTube/Nomadic Statatik
Frank Somerville, a news anchor, was reported to have been fired over a dispute regarding Gabby Petito coverage.
The Mercury News reported that the anchor had been "suspended indefinitely".
Somerville was told by sources that Somerville wanted to highlight coverage differences in missing-women cases.
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According to reports, a San Francisco news anchor was removed from the air due to a dispute regarding Gabby Petito coverage.
Sources informed The Mercury News Frank Somerville was the anchor of KTVU's Bay Area Fox station. He suggested that a segment on Petito include a question about the media coverage she had received.
According to sources, Somerville wanted the media to recognize the differences in attention between missing white women cases and Indigenous women's cases and women of colour.
Somerville, a white man with an adopted Black child, is said to have resisted management's suggestion that it was inappropriate.
According to The Mercury News, this is the second suspension of the news anchor for the year. After slurring and stumbles over his words while reading from the teleprompter, he was removed from the air in May. He had been suspended for eight weeks.
Petito, 22 years old, was reported missing by her relatives on September 11, after Brian Laundrie, her fianc, returned from a roadtrip across the US without her. The FBI declared her death homicide after her body was discovered a week later.
Laundrie refused cooperation with police investigations into Petito's disappearance, and has been missing since September 17.
Petito's story has been the subject of news headlines for several weeks. Critician have called the media's coverage of Petito's case a display "missing white woman syndrome", noting that similar cases involving women from other races do not receive the same attention.
Insider has the original article.
