Updated at 9 p.m. ET:
Anyone who has been fed up with salary, management or other issues that
have made a job unbearable has surely dreamed of a
"take-this-job-and-shove-it" moment. For most, though, news of the
moment likely wouldn't make it outside the workplace walls.
That
wasn't the case for a TV news anchor duo in Bangor, Maine, who quit
their jobs in front of thousands of viewers at the end of Tuesday
evening's newscast.
In what was reportedly inspired by a conflict with upper management,
co-anchors Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio announced to viewers that
it would be their last show, the Bangor Daily News reported.
The news anchors shared more than 12 years of experience working for WVII and sister station WFVX, according to the Daily News.
"Some
recent developments have come to our attention ... and departing
together is the best alternative we can take," Consiglio told viewers.
"We
wanted to be able to say a thoughtful, heartfelt good-bye to our
viewers and to the many communities we served over the years," Michaels
told NBC News in an email Wednesday. "We scripted something to keep from
getting off-course and emotional."
Michaels, 46, and Consiglio,
28, didn't tell anyone of their decision before the newscast, according
to the Bangor Daily News. The newspaper reported the journalists
were frustrated over the last four years with the way they were told to
do their jobs. In her signoff, Michaels claimed the two were "the
longest running news team in Bangor," with six years at the desk.
"There was a constant disrespecting and belittling of staff and we
both felt there was a lack of knowledge from ownership and upper
management in running a newsroom to the extent that I was not allowed to
structure and direct them professionally," Michaels, who also served as
the station's news director, told the Bangor Daily News. Her
co-anchor, Consiglio, also served as executive producer for the station.
"There
was a regular undoing of decisions made by me, the news director,"
Michaels told NBC News, citing that politically-charged stories were
sometimes not treated with an unbiased approach.
Michaels'
public LinkedIn profile indicates she has worked at the station since
October 2006. Consiglio, who was first a sports anchor and reporter
before moving over to the news anchor role, has worked at the station
since April 2006, according to his public LinkedIn profile.
Mike Palmer, the station's vice president and general manager, told the Bangor Daily News the incident was "unfortunate, but not unexpected." Palmer denied claims that upper management was involved in daily news production.
But a 2006 New York Times' story
indicates that may not be true. Following a broadcast segment about the
showing of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," Palmer wrote to his staff
that they should refrain from reporting on global warming until Bar
Harbor is underwater.
He explained: "a) we do local news, b) the
issue evolved from hard science into hard politics and c) despite what
you may have heard from the mainstream media, this science is far from
conclusive."
According to the Times' report, Palmer likened global
to "global warming stories in the same category as 'the killer African
bee scare' from the 1970s or, more recently, the Y2K scare when
everyone's computer was going to self-destruct."
As of Wednesday morning, WVII's employment page listed no open job opportunities, but the Bangor Daily News reported Palmer posted online job opening ads Tuesday night.
The anchors are moving on: Michaels told viewers she will pursue
freelance writing, while Consiglio said he'll continue his career "in
another capacity."
See the video of the co-anchors final sign-off on the Bangor Daily News website.
NBC News