Amy Jacobson Channel 5 Reporter Fired

"Great Caesar's ghost," Perry White used to thunder. Lois Lane, in pursuit of a scoop crossed that line and wound up tied up to a chair with that young Jimmy Olsen guy. Superman would have to see through a bank vault and crash through a wall to save them again. Didn't they ever learn the difference between being reporters and being the story (even if it was only a half an hour of black and white drama)?

My old friend, Amy Jacobson from NBC 5 here in Chicago apparently never watched Lois Lane.

You remember Amy? She was the girl that was stationed at the Ace Hardware reporting on the impending demise of rock salt and snow shovels as the great storm of '05 took us in it's great jaws. She was the one who stood on the overpass with the wind whipping her blond hair as she informed us that over the road truckers were pulling in for the night to 'wait it out'.

Then a young woman, Lisa Stebic, went missing and Amy got on the case. Lisa was in the process of divorcing her husband but there was no evidence of foul play, so far.

Amy was on the case though. She befriended Craig Stebic and his sister. When she got the call that the sister wanted her to come out and 'talk', this young reporter turned away from a toney family swimming outing at the East Bank Club, never mind that all she was wearing was bikini and a towel and drove her kids to the Stebic house.

Yes, they swam in the pool. Yes, but what can you do with kids? If only those cameras from evil Channel 2 hadn't been lurking in the bushes.

In a couple of days it all blew up. "Amy in a bikini!" "Amy in a halter top!" "She let the towel slip!" To the casual observer, she was having an affair with Craig Stebic.

She crossed that line that a journalist should never cross. According to Carol Marin in the Chicago Sun-Times, Amy lost her 'professional distance', but to be fair she added that 'none of us can claim a corner on journalistic purity."

You remember Carol. She quit her news gig rather than share news time with Jerry Springer. She badgered us with guilty stories about how double murderer Guin Garcia didn't deserve the death penalty because she had a lifetime of abuse behind her. Night after night she beat the drum for clemency. Guin who had wanted to be executed, got life without parole. Carol got an award. Then she was on to the Jewel food store to interview folks on why they were picking up a free colon/rectal screening kit. (I want to make sure that I don't have cancer) Night after night through sweeps week. How many times can you ask that same question and get the same answer?

I honestly didn't know that TV News was journalism. That story on American Idol winners must've been Pulitzer stuff.

But, damn Amy, how could you leave us? How will we ever know how many snow shovels are left or how much rock salt is holding out.

If they had caught Amy in a bikini with the Ace Hardware man, I would've been outraged.

I would've been happy if she had just stayed out of the pool. Maybe Superman could've saved her then.

Great Caesar's ghost!