More than a month after Frank Somerville was suspended from KTVU, the popular anchor remains off the air with no word from either him or the station about if or when he might return.
The public silence from Channel 2 and Fox, its parent network, has fueled community frustration over the ostensible reason he was suspended — a reported dispute over his push to add a brief commentary on racial inequity to the end of a straight-news story about the disappearance of social media influencer Gabby Petito, whose case had attracted a firestorm of media coverage.
Since Somerville’s suspension, two rallies have been held outside the KTVU studios in Jack London Square on Oct. 2 and and Oct. 12, both sparked by Somerville’s reported desire to address disparities in media coverage of White crime victims like Petito versus women of color.
Last week, the City of San Leandro also issued an official proclamation honoring the multiple Emmy-winning anchor “for speaking out about missing women of color and setting an example of strength and equity to our community and those worldwide.”
But even with such declarations, community activists say they have yet to hear from the station managers or Fox about their concerns.
“We wanted to give KTVU a chance to see if they would independently respond,” said George Holland, the president of the Oakland chapter of the NAACP, which hosted a rally for 40 to 50 people on Oct. 2. Holland wondered if KTVU or Fox simply hope the controversy will disappear.
“I think it’s probably time to (let them know) we’re still listening and waiting,” Holland said.
George Galvis, executive director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, which helped organize the Oct. 12 rally, said KTVU’s silence “is a response.”
“I think it’s really indicative of the silencing and invisibility of Black and brown people,” said Galvis, whose group worked with Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples to organize the rally. He said it was “deeply concerning” that KTVU wasn’t even willing to have a conversation about media coverage when it serves the Bay Area’s diverse viewers.
Somerville did not reply to repeated efforts to contact him, nor did representatives from Fox News, who said last month only that the anchor had been suspended “pending further review.” No one at KTVU, including news director Amber Eikel, would speak on the record.
But as community groups voice frustration, questions also remain over Somerville’s suspension. Among them, whether the anchor was offering an effective or appropriate way to challenge the media’s often lopsided obsession with stories about White women in jeopardy.
Martin Reynolds, co-executive director for the Oakland-based Maynard Institute, which promotes diversity in America’s newsrooms, said Somerville’s reported solution, to tack a commentary on at the end of a straight news story, would have been “lazy,” as opposed to assigning a full story on the topic. Reynolds, a former editor at the Oakland Tribune and Bay Area News Group, said it would have resulted in the “very disparity (in coverage) he was seeking to address.”
According to two KTVU newsroom sources, who declined to give their names because they were not authorized to speak on the record, Somerville wanted to add a 46-second “tag” to an update on the Petito case, which aired Sept. 21. The New York-born Petito was slain during a cross-country van trip with her fiance, Brian Laundrie. He was named as a person of interest in the case, and his remains were found in Florida last week.
A “tag” is a brief closing to a story that’s typically read by an anchor. Somerville wanted the tag to address domestic violence and the media’s tendency to overlook reports about missing and slain women of color, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which obtained a copy of Somerville’s original tag.
Shortly before the 5 p.m. broadcast, Eikel told Somerville she planned to cut the tag after newsroom editors raised concerns. Sources said Eikel was willing to assign a reporter to do a separate, more in-depth story. However, she agreed with the editors who thought the tag on its own wasn’t a sufficient way to cover the story and would blur the lines between an anchor delivering a straight news story and offering editorial commentary, sources said.
Somerville pushed back, but was overruled, a newsroom source said. Before the 6 p.m. broadcast, a producer, not familiar with the earlier discussions between Somerville and Eikel, noticed that a shortened tag had been added to the Petito update.
Somerville reportedly told the producer that Eikel had approved a shortened version, a source said. But she hadn’t and the new tag was removed. The next day, Somerville was told he was suspended for defying a superior’s orders, sources said.
Reynolds said Somerville may have been well-intentioned, and that he certainly seems passionate about fairness in coverage. As Somerville has pointed out on social media, he is the father of an adopted Black daughter.
But if Somerville thought the issue was “so important, then he should have used his journalistic gravitas to push for a second story to run after the segment or a series of stories to run over the next couple days,” Reynolds said. “It should have been much more about stepping into the journalism and … giving respect and honor to the issue and people you’re purporting to be in service of.”
Somerville was off the air for much of the summer following his now-infamous May 30 newscast, when he repeatedly slurred and stumbled over his words and appeared to have trouble reading off the teleprompter. He took a nine-week leave to “focus on his health” and had only returned in August. Seven weeks later, he was off the air again.
Now, the tagline controversy has put Somerville in a position that journalists usually find uncomfortable: instead of reporting on the story, he is the story. Somerville, a white male, is “being lionized and becoming the topic of the story and not the women who have been ignored,” Reynolds said.
But Reynolds also faulted KTVU for fueling the controversy by not meeting with activists to discuss their complaints about coverage, saying that journalism organizations must offer “a level of transparency and accountability.”
While not publicly commenting to reporters about his suspension, Somerville took to Instagram late last month to thank his fans for his support in standing up for what he believes “no matter … the consequences.”
“We in the media can’t be afraid to look in the mirror and ask ourselves tough questions about race and our coverage,” Somerville said. “And I won’t stop fighting for equal media representation for all victims.”
Holland and Galvis insist the ultimate focus of their rallies was not Somerville, nor were they saying the media shouldn’t cover Petito’s killing. But if Petito’s story needs to be told, so do the stories of thousands of overlooked women of color, they said.
Galvis said activists’ intentions weren’t to “wag the finger” but to foster “a dialogue” with a media organization that’s a Bay Area icon with “tremendous power.”