Cleveland Anchor Leaving to spend more time blah blah
Just once, we would like to see somebody leave TV news to do anything but spend more time with their family.
WJW (Cleveland) Anchor Wilma Smith is leaving the station after 35 years. She says that she is leaving on her own terms. When you have been at the station that long, you should go out on your own terms.
But you have to wonder if she really is leaving on own?
When she announced she was leaving the station on air Yesterday, she was very emotional. Yet, she's not leaving till the end of May. You would think that is the time she would be emotional. She still has over 2 months of work left.
She tells the Cleveland Plain Dealer "It also feels good to be leaving on my own terms." "I'm just ready for a new phase of my life."
If you're really leaving on your own, why do you have to stress that to the newspaper reporter?
She then brought it up again. "It was just time," Smith said during a telephone interview. "I've worked since I was 15, and I could have stayed longer."
The more she talks about her own terms and she could have stayed longer, if you read between the lines, it seems as if she was offered a new deal, but for much less money and maybe less shows to anchor. We are not saying that's the case, it's just that we have seen this so many times before.
And of course there is the one line that everyone uses that is pushed out at a station. "I want to spend more time with my husband, Tom. He's my gift from God, and God has been very good to me. I've had a wonderful career. For a girl from Garfield Heights, it was a dream come true. But you just don't want to stay at the party too long."
The old "I want to spend more time with my family," is total code for, I've been kicked to the curb.
FTVLive has no knowledge this is the case here, but damn it sure reads like it.