Who is Dodge Landesman? TV anchor claims he was fired over Lisa Marie Presley Scientology links coverage
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: News anchor Dodge Landesman who had a number of notable stints in his youth, claims the Church of Scientology is invincible. The New York City-born news reporter was recently fired from his job as morning anchor over a Lisa Marie Presley story he was covering.
Landesman revealed to the New York Post that he lost his $30,000-a-year job as a morning anchor at KYMA in Yuma, Arizona, last month. The 32-year-old thought he developed a thick skin when, as a 15-year-old freestyle rapper, he participated in the VH-1 reality series 'Ice-T's Rap School' and even ran unsuccessfully for a New York City Council seat at the age of 18. However, all this was undone when he was fired after a complaint from a Scientology spokesperson over a story about the late Lisa Marie Presley, the church and Danny Masterson.
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In reference to his two months in Yuma, which he landed at after attending journalism graduate school and working at a number of other tiny stations across the country, Landesman said, "Everything had been smooth sailing. I'd gotten really good feedback and not a single reprimand. I felt good and I respected my co-workers and news director."
Landesman explained that he felt Presley should be remembered for opposing Scientology when he wrote the one-minute, 45-second script. The full script, which he had also written for the station's website, was aired on January 16 and has since been removed.
'Lisa Marie Presley was planning Scientology takedown before her death'
The headline of Landesman's peice read, "Lisa Marie Presley was planning Scientology takedown before her death," which he claimed had not been approved by KYMA executives, although he acknowledged that they rarely did so.
Tony Ortega, a prominent Scientology reporter, deemed Landesman's piece as "essentially correct." He said, "Look, Landesman's piece wasn't great. It didn't really get the details right about Presley's involvement in the Masterson matter. But essentially, it was correct that she was, at one point, planning on exposing Scientology's wrongdoing after having been involved in it for many years."
Landesman claimed that a longtime spokesperson for Scientology, Karin Pouw, called him the day after his script aired and asked him to remove it, the New York Post reported. Despite promising to look into the matter, he said he left the piece as is.
The following day, Pouw called again, and then Landesman's managers, the news director, and the general manager got in touch with him. Landesman said, "They said it looks really bad and sloppy and they asked for my sources. I told them I got the information from Variety and other reliable sources. They said they were going to fight for me to keep my job with corporate and I thanked them."
However, a few days later, Landesman claimed his superiors fired him because they thought he was too irresponsible and opinionated. "They also said corporate was afraid of a lawsuit," Landesman said. "It was because they got scared of Scientology. They decided to cower to a paper tiger worth billions of dollars."
Who is Dodge Landesman?
Dodge Landesman is the son of noted Broadway producer Rocco Landesman. He had worked for several years as an anchor and reporter for several small stations, earning between $18,000 and $29,000 in Caspar, Wyoming, Salisbury, Maryland, and Midland, Texas.
Landesman has proclaimed his resignation from "mainstream" media and his intention to establish a career as an independent journalist on TikTok and Youtube. He said, "TV news is falling apart. Nobody under 65 watches it and you can see why. Everything we did had to be cut and pasted from the networks and they didn't want anything original. It's a sad state of affairs. I want to go out there and tell the truth," reports New York Post.