Last week, I wrote about the media’s abject failure to tell the true story of Scientology and its relationship with Lisa Marie Presley, who lived most of her life in the notorious cult before breaking away. She died January 12 at age 54.
This week, I received an interesting email from Dodge Landesman — an anchor for KYMA, the Yuma, AZ, NBC and CBS TV station — who also covered the Scientology angle in the Presley story. He told me that he has been fired. Like me, he wrote about Presley and her role as a possible witness against Scientology in a criminal trial for rape against another celebrity, Scientologist Danny Masterson.
After the story aired, Landesman explained, Scientology contacted the reporter, as well as his bosses, who bounced it to the conglomerate that owns the station — and threatened to sue them. The company pulled the story and fired Landesman.
In place of the original article is this mysteriously vague notice:
Editor’s Note: In an exercise of editorial discretion, NPG of Yuma-El Centro Broadcasting, LLC has elected to unpublish this piece. After careful review, and given information that came to light after the piece was published, NPG of Yuma-El Centro Broadcasting, LLC has determined that it can no longer stand behind the piece because, among other things, it contained aspects of opinion by the author.
If Landesman had written something false — as proven by “information that came to light after the piece was published” — it’s odd that the editor didn’t publish a correction notice.
KYMA News Director Ernesto Romero declined to discuss the matter, saying, “Our company does not comment on personnel matters and the editorial note included in the article speaks for itself.”
Although the original report has been taken down, we can still view it here — with the tantalizing headline “Lisa Marie Presley was planning Scientology takedown before her death.”
Hellbound and Down 