A television reporter quit her job on live TV with a big four-letter flourish after revealing she owns a medical marijuana business and intends to press for legalisation of recreational pot in Alaska.
After reporting on the Alaska Cannabis Club on Sunday night's broadcast, KTVA's Charlo Greene identified herself as the business's owner.
"Everything you've heard is why I, the actual owner of the Alaska Cannabis Club, will be dedicating all my energy toward fighting for freedom and for fairness, which begins with legalising marijuana here in Alaska," she said during the late Sunday evening newscast.
"And as for this job, well not that I have a choice, but f*** it, I quit."
She then walked off camera.
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KTVA News Director Bert Rudman apologised on Sunday for Greene's "inappropriate language" and said she'd been sacked. He apologised again on Monday, this time for Greene's ethical lapses.
"She had a personal and business stake in the issue she was reporting, but did not disclose that interest to us," Rudman said in a statement.
"At KTVA we strive to live up to the highest journalistic standards of fairness and transparency. Sunday's breach of those standards is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated," he said.
Greene is the professional name used by Charlene Egbe. The 26-year-old told The Associated Press on Monday that she knew about a month ago that she would be leaving the way she did. No one else at the station knew anything about it, she said.
Alaska voters will decide in the November election whether to join Washington and Colorado in decriminalising pot.
Greene doesn't believe the manner of her departure is harming her cause.
"Are we talking about it, or not, because of what I did. Period," she said. "It always goes back to the issue."
