KNBC is certainly taking a chance with their newest hire, anchor Alycia Lane, who brings a lot of baggage with her to Los Angeles. The station’s newest weekend anchor and general assignment reporter starts Wednesday, according to a KNBC press release.
Lane holds a Master’s in Broadcast Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, and has over ten years of work experience as an anchor/reporter. She seemed like a lucky charm for CBS3 in Philadelphia, where the ratings of her 11 o’clock newscast rose by 61%.
But her shining image soon changed, with a series of very public scandals.
In May 2007, she made the New York Post’s Page Six when photos of a bikini-clad Lane that she sent to NFL Network’s Rich Eisen were published alongside an irate email to Lane from Eisen’s wife, who discovered the photos in a shared email account.
In December ’07, Lane confronted a female police officer in New York City, allegedly slapping her and calling her a derogatory term, resulting in the charge of assaulting a police officer. With the trial pending, CBS3 fired her, prompting Lane to hire her own counsel and file a wrongful termination lawsuit in June 2008, claiming she was “exploited” and “defamed.”
Also in the spring of 2008, Lane’s co- anchor, Larry Mendte, was under investigation by the FBI for allegedly reading Lane’s private e-mail and leaking information to gossip columnists since March 2006. Mendte was fired from CBS3 at the end of June 2008.
This is Lane’s first job since her termination from CBS3 in January 2008.
For now, KNBC seems to be overlooking Lane’s past troubles. In a statement Craig Robinson, President and General Manager of KNBC said, “Her energy and talent will be great assets to KNBC, and we look forward to her contributions to our newsroom.”