Gone From the Station

FTVLive was the FIRST to tell you about the uproar by viewers against Nexstar’s WCIA (Champaign, IL) for the way they reported on a police-involved shooting.

One officer was shot and killed, another wounded when they responded to a domestic disturbance call of a man beating a woman.

The WCIA report focused on the suspect (who was also killed). “WCIA talked to the cop killer’s family and used pictures of him with angel wings. The entire story talked about how great this cop killer was and that he was a great family man, etc,” said one person that saw the story on the station’s air, adding, “They never reported in the story that officers were called for a domestic disturbance because he was beating a woman or the fact he has two prior charges of domestic violence or the fact that he was a convicted felon and had a gun. None of it.”

The community took the station to task and a number of the station’s advertisers spoke out against WCIA’s coverage.

The station attempted to put the toothpaste back in the tube:

Sources now tell FTVLive that News Director Rich Flesch is gone from the Nexstar station.

“The GM is trying to cover her ass. She has yet to make any public statement like the station promised and still has yet to sign a single apology. The community is still pissed at them and continue to reject them,” said one station insider to FTVLive.

Flesch had been with the station over a dozen years, the past 5 years plus as the News Director.