If he did indeed say what I have read and heard he said, I do not really mind if Ken Rosato gets fired. I say that with a normal presumption of innocence in mind, but nowhere has it been indicated — whether by an amateur or professional — that he is denying any guilt.
It’s like this, something happened at WABC-TV in New York a couple of weeks back and now Rosato, a morning anchor is out of a job.
Short version, Mr. Rosato was apparently heard on a hot mic hurling an unfriendly female-centric slur at co-anchor Shirleen Allicot. If the news-gossip page Page Six and a couple of other steadfast rags have it right, the c-word was uttered in Ms. Allicot’s direction. While not going over the air, reportedly his microphone was live, and others heard it.
In mulling it over with a news former colleague, we both came to the same conclusion, amateur mistake. And if all is accurate, it was.
Not only amateur in the terms of a broadcast news professional, or a journalist, but amateur in terms of being a man in a work environment. And for anyone who is thinking I am playing with gender issue fire here, fine. It was an amateur mistake in terms of being a human in a work environment.
Some things are never okay. Saying something like that to a lady is one of them. In my opinion at least, and I’m the one writing here.
I’m not going to waste a lot of mental energy on this one, but do I get irked when people with likable public personae get pinched doing things like this. It makes the job look bad. It makes the job look worse than it already does.
This is not Australia, New Zealand, or the parts of the UK where that word has been significantly diluted to be a more common part of conversion and certainly far less offensive.
I know nothing of what the workplace relationships are at Eyewitness News or what type of work environment it is but there are lines everyone recognizes. I hate speculation, all I really can gather is the wrong thing was said, a woman was subjected to a verbal shot she had no reason to receive. I am not going to say she likely had no reason receive because nobody does and there are very few relationships out there that allow for such collar-tugging informality.
I’ve neither read nor heard anything about an explanation or apology. I’ve only read that Mr. Rosato’s representative made sure news outlets knew that it was not a racial slur that was uttered. Page Six reported Rosato’s rep as telling them, “Being fired for any racial slur is 100 percent inaccurate and untrue. Ken Rosato had a benchmark of 20 years at WABC of supporting all equality.”
Well, not all it seems to me. Gender falls within those parameters I believe. One can’t really find salvation here in not being racially insensitive.
I do not expect journalists to be above reproach, certainly not TV journalists, not anchors. I would like it if they were.
I don’t mean that as an insult or a way to impugn their abilities necessarily but I’m a realist. There comes a point where lines become blurred, the image becomes the identity it seems and the idea that one can do or say anything is suddenly part of the frontal lobe.
And that is not fair to everyone who works hard at their job at WABC, who takes pride in what they do and now must be identified with a moronic comment one (now ex-) colleague made to another.
If one were to ask me, I would say drag him back in front of the cameras just to apologize to Ms. Allicot for the viewers. My mother would have gone along with that.
The morning news audience now has something else to think about when they watch instead of focusing on the work these people do. For at least a while, that news team has a cloud over it, a veteran news person will not be working again anytime soon and people like me are wondering just how stupid some people can be.
And then we go a step further and ask those questions aloud.
Bill Zito has devoted most of his work efforts to broadcast news since 1999. He made the career switch after serving a dozen years as a police officer on both coasts. Splitting the time between Radio and TV, he’s worked for ABC News and Fox News, News 12 New York , The Weather Channel and KIRO and KOMO in Seattle. He writes, edits and anchors for Audacy’s WTIC-AM in Hartford and lives in New England. You can find him on Twitter @BillZitoNEWS.
