Frank Somerville doesn't expect to return to the air on KTVU, the veteran Bay Area TV news anchor told multiple local outlets on Tuesday.
Somerville, who has worked at the station since 1991, said in an interview with the Mercury News on Tuesday that "(all) indications are that I'm never going to anchor at Channel 2 again." He then told the San Francisco Chronicle it was "just a guess. But I have no reason to think otherwise."
The 63-year-old told the Chronicle he has been on paid leave since September, when the station reportedly suspended him for attempting to close a story about Gabby Petito with commentary about domestic violence and discrepancies in media coverage of missing white women and missing women of color. He reportedly intended to focus on "missing white woman syndrome," the term coined by late journalist Gwen Ifill to describe the latter phenomenon.
Somerville, a white man and the adoptive father of a Black girl, told the Mercury News he didn't think it was wrong to push to include the tag in his story, apologizing "to all the people in the station for all the drama."
"All this drama isn't good," Somerville told the outlet. "I wish I could apologize to all of them in person. They're the backbone of Channel 2. I appreciate and admire what they do every day."
Somerville told both newspapers he hasn't heard from his KTVU supervisors. He also told the Mercury News that nobody from Fox, which owns and operates the station, had reached out to him, either.
As a result, Somerville said he expects KTVU will not renew his contract when it expires in January.
"I still want to continue working," Somerville told the Mercury News. "I would love to work at one of the other stations in the market. If not, I'll go to other stations outside of the market."
Neither KTVU nor Fox Television Stations responded to KCBS Radio's requests for comment prior to publication. This story will be updated when we hear back.
Somerville was on leave for much of the summer "to focus on his health" following a May 30 newscast in which he slurred his words. He returned to the air in August prior to his indefinite suspension.
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