I declared my major so I could finally transfer to SF State in 2016. When I first declared my major as “Journalism,” in 2015, I felt relieved. In fact, I started this blog post way before Somerville’s recent statements: But before I jump into his recent fall from grace, I want to share a little back story as to why I originally wrote this blog post in the first place. Recently, Somerville posted on Facebook explaining his DUI in 2021. I would often find myself wondering if he was back on Facebook, as he posted frequently in the past. After that incident, any news of Somerville went radio silent. The video of the DUI incident was floating around the internet, and it made me so sad to see someone I respected and watched for so many years hit rock bottom. ![]() And I was even more shocked a few months later to learn that he received a DUI days before Christmas. I was shocked to learn that he would no longer be their news anchor. Like many others, I waited for the news of his return back on the screen. Now, real Bay Area folks know that Frank Somerville was the face of KTVU. Towards the end of 2021, KTVU cut ties with Somerville over a disagreement. He was the definition of a traditional journalist in the actual sense, given his position at KTVU news, but at the same time, how he went about being a journalist was pretty progressive. It wasn’t until I went to school for journalism did I realize how controversial and bold he was as a journalist. He would share little tidbits about his life during his segments, and throughout the years, it made me feel like I knew him personally. I grew up on KTVU news, and Somerville was a familiar face that I saw everyday at 5 PM. The ABC News report also said that only about one-fifth of missing person cases involving minorities are covered by the news, according to a 2016 analysis published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.I’ve always been a fan of KTVU, but more so because of Frank Somerville. MSNBC host Joy Reid criticized her own industry on her prime-time program, calling the Petito coverage an example of “missing White woman syndrome,” a term coined by the late PBS anchor Gwen Ifill to describe the media’s often lopsided focus on white women and girls when they go missing.Īn ABC News report, citing statistics from the FBI’s National Crime Information Center stated that at the end of 2020, the FBI had more than 89,000 active missing person cases, and 45 percent of those were people of color. Meanwhile, the media coverage issue Somerville had hoped to raise has garnered plenty of attention in recent days as debate rages over how much is too much. Somerville has said in the past that he wants to work “two or three more years” and would like to finish his career at KTVU. He’s one of the highest paid anchors in the Bay Area, but his contract is up in March. This latest incident, coming just six weeks after Somerville’s return to the anchor desk, will undoubtedly trigger speculation about his future with the station. Since then, Fox and station management have refused to publicly speak to the issue. Somerville was off the air for more than nine weeks before returning in August to Channel 2’s “The Ten O’Clock News” without addressing his unusual absence. ![]() There was no word on how heated the discussion got. The veteran anchor was told that the tagline was inappropriate and he apparently pushed back on it. Somerville is the adoptive father of a Black teen daughter. media often disproportionately covers tragedies involving young White women, while largely ignoring similar cases involving women of color and Indigenous people. Sources said he wanted to point out that the U.S. Somerville wanted to add a brief tagline at the end of the report that questioned the extraordinary level of media coverage devoted to the story. KTVU was prepared to air a news report detailing the latest developments in the case. The FBI has issued an arrest warrant for Brian Laundrie, Petito’s 23-year-old fiancé. Petito, 22, had been reported missing earlier this month while on a cross-country camping trip. The disagreement, said sources, occurred earlier in the week after the body of Petito was discovered in Wyoming. Frank Somerville finally returns to KTVU: Are viewers owed an explanation?
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