TV Station WDIV Circles Wagons Around "Super Drunk" Employee

TV Station WDIV Circles Wagons Around “Super Drunk” Employee

On February 12, WDIV
Channel 4 employee Kevin Dietz was cited for drunk driving in Bloomfield
Township.  His alcohol level was .17%
which in Michigan is considered “super drunk”. 
As such, on April 18 he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.  Dietz refused a breathalyzer test and after
sentencing issued an apology.

So Kevin Dietz
apologizes for being "super drunk" and the WDIV management supports
his forthrightness because he is "an important contributor to WDIV now and
in the future".  How admirable!  He not only was super drunk but
super ignorant!  Where is "Ruth To The Rescue" when we need her!

I have no patience with
drunk drivers.  It was fortunate that Dietz did not crash his car into
someone else or this story might have a different ending.  His credibility
is now at zero as is the station’s.  Each time he appears on WDIV with a
report we will be reverting back to this episode and wonder about his state of
mind. 

Nowhere in the comments
from Vice President and General Manager Marla Drutz did I find
the statements "as a professional organization we are embarrassed by
the actions of an employee" or "we have zero tolerance for drunk
driving".  The statement from Drutz on the other hand insinuates that
if one is drunk, takes responsibility and steps to correct it", all is
forgiven.  How sad!

I suspect that there
will be some people who come forward to offer sympathetic comments about
Dietz.  These are probably people who
have driven drunk themselves or feel that a bit of alcohol and driving still
mix.  Wonder how their sympathetic
comments would change had Dietz run a red light or a stop sign and crashed into
their car.  Or what if he had killed
someone in a crash!

It would be interesting
to review some past stories on WDIV about drunk drivers to determine how those
cases were handled by the reporters.  I suspect that the "pass"
given to Dietz was not as pronounced in those stories. 

Dietz now joins an “elite”
group of inebriated reporters headed up by Fox TV 2 Charlie LeDuff! 
Maybe Ruth can drive both of them to their AA meetings!

Frankly I suspect and
hope that there are employees at WDIV who find this incident about drunk
driving as disgusting as I and most people find it.  On the other hand
those employees will never comment publicly about Dietz being "super
drunk" because Drutz is treating this as if Dietz just had a hiccup! 

Bill Kalmar