![]() An arrest warrant has been issued by the FBI for Petito’s fiance, Brian Laundrie. The Oakland chapter of the NAACP is calling on KTVU to reinstate Frank Somerville after the veteran news anchor was suspended indefinitely after a disagreement over. Petito, 22, had been reported missing earlier this month while on a camping trip and was found dead in Wyoming last week. TheWrap has reached out to KTVU for additional comment. His indefinite suspension comes just six weeks after ending a previous leave of absence for health issues when he struggled to read his teleprompter and slurred his words during a broadcast in May. The Mercury News said that Somerville, who has an adopted Black daughter, pushed back after the tagline was refused, though there was no information on how heated the discussion got. He has received three Emmy awards at KTVU, including one for best on-camera news anchor. He anchors the station’s newscasts at five o’clock, six o’clock, as well as eleven o’clock. “ But the way this story captivated the nation has many wondering why not the same media attention when people of color go missing? Well, the answer actually has a name: Missing White Woman Syndrome, the term coined by the late and great Gwen Ifill to describe the media and public fascination with missing white women like Laci Peterson or Natalee Holloway while ignoring cases involving of people of color.” Frank Somerville is an American journalist currently working for KTVU-TV in Oakland, California as an anchor. “The Petito family certainly deserves answers and justice,” Reid said. The disparity has become part of the national conversation surrounding the Petito case after MSNBC host Joy Reid brought it up on her show “The ReidOut” this past Monday. The source did not know how long the suspension will last, or whether Somerville will return to KTVU airwaves before his contract expires in March.Frank Somerville, anchor for Fox Bay Area news affiliate KTVU, has been pulled off air by the network over a behind-the-scenes dispute concerning coverage of the Gabby Petito missing persons case.Īccording to The Mercury News, Somerville wanted to add a tagline to a segment about the Petito case pointing out the disparity in coverage of missing persons cases of white women relative to women of color. Immediately prior to his summer absence, Somerville repeatedly slurred and tripped over his words while reading off a teleprompter during a May 30 newscast. The suspension comes weeks after Somerville returned to KTVU airwaves following an unexplained nine-week absence from the station’s “The Ten O’Clock News” show. Somerville had been attempting to raise the issue of providing additional context and statistics to the story since Petito’s disappearance first breached public consciousness roughly one month ago but was continually rebuffed by others in the newsroom, according to the source. ![]() Somerville allegedly was informed by station management of his “indefinite suspension” the next day. His request was denied by KTVU news director Amber Eikel, who said the tagline was inappropriate and questioned Somerville’s news judgement to link the story to domestic violence before any suspects were convicted. Somerville asked to include a less-than-30-second sidebar as an addendum to the story with additional facts and statistics that showed Black women in America experience higher rates of domestic violence than white women in America, according to the source. Somerville, who is the father of a Black adopted daughter, shared these beliefs, desiring to add a brief tagline critiquing the extraordinary media coverage Petito’s story had garnered at the end of a planned straight news report updating the details of the case, according to the source. Reid is among those who believe coverage of Petito’s disappearance is an example of the media phenomenon late journalist and broadcaster Gwen Ifill described as “missing White woman syndrome,” during which the media provides a lopsided focus on missing white women and girls without providing equal coverage for similar cases of missing women of color. The search for Petito has sparked a nationwide media frenzy, though some in the journalism industry, most prominently MSNBC’s Joy Reid, have argued the attention it has received as undue. The FBI has issued an arrest warrant for Petito’s 23-year-old fiancé, Brian Laundrie, and he is considered a prime suspect in her suspected homicide. Somerville, 63, has been “suspended indefinitely” by KTVU management following a disagreement over ongoing coverage of the Gabby Petito missing person and homicide case.Īccording to the source, the conflict with Somerville came to a head when the body of Petito was discovered in Wyoming earlier this week, after she had been reported missing while on a cross-country camping trip with her fiancé. KTVU news anchor Frank Somerville has again been removed from the air, as first reported by the Mercury News and confirmed by a source at KTVU who spoke to SFGATE.
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