Exit signs at three D-FW news departments
01/02/07 12:28 PM
By ED BARK
CBS11 has resumed its hunt for a news director after Greg Easterly from Cleveland's Fox-owned WJW-TV decided over the holidays that he'd rather not relocate to Dallas.
Easterly, who also would have run TXA21's news department, decided to rethink the move after attending the stations' Christmas party, CBS11/TXA21 president and general manager Steve Mauldin said Tuesday.
"This was strictly a personal situation," Mauldin said, noting that the Easterlys have a 15-year-old daughter who did not want to be uprooted. "It was very traumatic for them."
Mauldin said he got the news from Easterly on Friday. He was scheduled to join the D-FW stations in mid-January, replacing previous news director Tom Doerr, who returned to Miami. Easterly has Texas ties. He was raised in Stephenville and has a bachelor's degree in communications from Abilene Christian University.
There's no timetable for hiring Easterly's replacement, but "it could be soon," Mauldin said.
CBS11 also confirmed that reporter Eileen Gonzalez has been let go after joining the station in 2003. Mauldin declined to comment further.
Over at NBC5, medical reporter/anchor Carol Wang is leaving after six years at the station. She'll be joining the news department of an Omaha, Neb. TV station. And Natasha Curry has been dropped by Fox4, where she had reported and co-anchored the 5 to 6 a.m. portion of the station's Good Day.
Midway through the November "sweeps," Fox4 moved anchors Tim Ryan and Megan Henderson up an hour in hopes of offsetting NBC5's fast starts in the local Nielsen ratings. But the Peacock's early morning show comfortably won the increasingly important early morning race.
Also at Fox4, the station has hired Natalie Solis from Miami as a new weekend co-anchor.