Arizona anchor says he was fired after Scientologists complained about coverage of Lisa Marie Presley
>
A television news anchor says he was fired from his job as a morning anchor in Arizona last month after publishing a story about the late Lisa Marie Presley’s relationship with the Church of Scientology.
Dodge Landesma, 32, told the New York Post that everything had gone perfectly two months into his new job at KYMA in Yuma, Arizona.
“Everything had gone smoothly,” he said.
Until, after her death last month, Landesman wrote the script for a 1 minute 45 second video about Lisa Marie’s involvement in Danny Masterson’s rape trial.
The article prompted an almost immediate call from Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw asking her to remove the story.
32-year-old aspiring newscaster Dodge Landesman said things were going well at his new job in Yuma, Arizona, until he published an article about the late Lisa Marie Presley.
Lisa Marie Presley died last month at the age of 54, having been a Scientologist until about a decade ago when she decided to leave the religion.
Masterson, a lifelong Scientologist, was and will be retried on three counts of rape involving allegations made by various accusers about incidents that occurred between 2001 and 2003. His Los Angeles trial ended late last year with a split jury. and two days before Presley’s death, a Los Angeles judge announced that a new trial would take place.
Landesman’s piece, titled ‘Lisa Marie Presley was planning the takedown of Scientology before her death‘, alleged that Elvis’s late daughter prepared to testify for the prosecution in the original Masterson rape case had been pressured by a church member to convince one of the accusers not to report him to the police.
The article alleged that she was never called before the jury.
Landesmon wrote in the article, which was not examined by KYMA bosses: “It’s important to dig a little deeper into the death of Lisa Marie Presley.”
He wrote that Presley and Masterson had, at one point, been good friends until she left the church around 2014.
Presley, she claimed, was going to “appear and testify in support of her friend, who was one of Masterson’s alleged victims.”
“She was preparing to testify that her friend told her she was raped that night,” Landesman wrote.
The Church of Scientology of Los Angeles building on Sunset Boulevard. Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw reportedly called Landesman to ask her to remove the story.
Masterson, a longtime Scientologist, is currently facing a new trial on various rape charges. His previous trial ended with a split jury late last year.
Landesman said his station chiefs told him his article was “sloppy” and that they feared a lawsuit from the Church of Scientology.
The aspiring TV presenter, who attended journalism school and worked at various small outlets around the country, said that after his article was published, Karin Pouw, a longtime spokesperson for Scientology, called him and told him asked to remove it.
He says he told him he’d look into it, but he didn’t remove the piece.
Two hours later, and again the next day, she called him and asked him again to delete the piece.
That’s when Landesman was summoned to a meeting with his bosses, the station’s news director and general manager.
Landesman told the Post, they asked for his sources and were told that his article appeared to be “sloppy.”
I told them that I got the information from Variety and other reliable sources. They said they were going to fight for me to keep my job at the company and I thanked them.’
Several days later, however, Landesman says his bosses told him he was too reckless and fired him.
“They also said that the companies were afraid of a lawsuit,” he said. ‘It was because they were afraid of Scientology. They decided to cower before a paper tiger worth billions of dollars.
Actor Danny Masterson (L) stands with his attorney Thomas Mesereau as he is arraigned on three counts of rape in separate incidents between 2001 and 2003, in Los Angeles Superior Court, in Los Angeles. Last month, a judge declared that the court will go ahead with a new trial.
The Scientology world headquarters in Clearwater, Florida is called the Flag Building
He To post reported that the station’s news director, Ernesto Romero, had no comment on personnel matters and that the editor’s note that replaced Landesman’s story online speaks for itself.
The note reads: ‘In an exercise of editorial discretion, NPG of Yuma-El Centro Broadcasting, LLC has chosen to unpublish this article. After careful review, and given information that came to light after the article was published, NPG of Yuma-El Centro Broadcasting, LLC has determined that it can no longer support the article because, among other things, it contained aspects of the author’s opinion.’
Veteran Scientology journalist Tony Ortega told the publication that although Landesman’s article got some details wrong, the gist was “essentially correct.”
‘Look, the Landesman piece wasn’t great. He really missed the details of Presley’s involvement in the Masterson affair.
“But essentially, it was correct that she, at one point, was planning to expose the wrongdoing of Scientology after having been involved in it for many years,” he said.