EXCLUSIVE: NBC O&O Changes Tune after FTVLive Story
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When WCAU in Philly sent out a press release saying that they hired Erika Martin as its new weekend meteorologist, most blogs and newspapers just regurgitated the information on their sites.
FTVLive did a bit of digging and found out what the NBC O&O was saying wasn't true.
WCAU claimed that Martin "earned a meteorology degree from Mississippi State University, and went to Santa Monica College for her broadcast journalism degree. Additionally, Martin is a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist with the American Meteorological Society...."
That is how the Philly paper wrote up the story along with some other media blogs. But, FTVLive checked on Martin's background and interestingly enough, we found that American Meteorological Society's website shows no Erika Martin on the list of Certified Broadcast Meteorologists. In fact there is no "Erika" on the list at all.
We called bullshit and it looks like WCAU had to do some big time backpedaling.
Although, WCAU didn't have the balls to contact us, they did contact the local Philly paper and the story was change. The paper wrote, "NBC10 previously misidentified Martin as a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist in a press release. A spokesperson has since issued a statement apologizing for the error, indicating that the station "misidentified her certification." "She is in the process of completing her certification," the spokesperson said. "We apologize for the error."
So, did Martin lie to her new employer and claim she was something she certainly was not? If so, how can WCAU continue to go through with this hiring, if the employee lied before even starting the job?
Or, even more disturbing, did WCAU lie and try and pump of their new weekend Weather Anchor's resume?
Either way, something stinks and just saying the station, "misidentified her certification", doesn't cut it.
Lucky, for WCAU, we're now officially on vacation, but if someone wants to gives us the true answer and not some Trump like BS, we'll update the story.
