Posted by Petty Cash Bull on January 26, 2010 at 15:46:18:
WGN's Payne shares addiction battle
Anchorwoman Allison Payne has gone public with her 20-year fight against addiction and believes there is no shame in acknowledging that she has had a drinking problem.
But Payne and WGN-Ch. 9 News Director Greg Caputo on Friday said that admission, which came as a passing mention during a Thursday newscast, was not the reason she was off the air for much of 2008. She and the station still attribute those absences to a series of ministrokes and their lingering effects, including depression, for which she still receives treatment.
Drinking, Payne said Friday, "was not the issue when I was out sick. … I had no use of my right hand. They diagnosed me with ministrokes."
Chicago Public Radio blogger Robert Feder reported Payne's Thursday on-air remark, which came during an interview with former pro hockey player Theo Fleury. Payne said she once worked with the same Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor who helped Fleury, who is promoting his autobiography detailing his drug and alcohol addictions.
Feder recalled viewer concerns over Payne's slurred speech and swiveling in her chair during an August 2008 broadcast. At the time, he noted, she told the Chicago Tribune, "I was not drunk," and blamed the incident on a combination of factors including overwork and the effects of her ministrokes. The Chicago Tribune and WGN are owned by Tribune Co.
Payne, who noted that the AA sponsor she identified on-air has been dead nearly a year, said her history with addiction is why she was so determined to get word out that she was not drunk that night in 2008. When pressed, she acknowledged she does not attend weekly AA meetings but said it has been "probably five years since the last time I went on a big drinking binge."
Two and a half weeks after the slurring episode, Payne went to Mayo Clinic for tests to better address her health issues. It was just one of her many absences from work that year.
Payne, who joined Channel 9 as co-anchor of its 9 p.m. news in 1990, first was sidelined from January to April 2008 and again from November to the beginning of 2009. On her January 2009 return, the station said it would reduce her workload by using her only on its 5:30 p.m. newscast to "allow her to continue with her rehabilitation."
Last fall, when WGN extended her contract by two years, it moved Payne full-time to its two-hour 11 a.m. news.
"Remember that time I told you I was not drinking?" said Payne, who turns 46 on Feb. 12. "That's because I'm not a drinker. No way I was drunk on the air. Twenty years ago, when I first came to Chicago, I felt like I might be headed down the path of a drinking problem. One of my colleagues at WGN who shall remain anonymous took me to my first AA meeting, and subsequently I met this guy Michael, who's larger than life. He became my AA sponsor. … Years later, he became Theo's sponsor.
"There is no shame in all of this. That's why I was so happy to talk to Theo. Because he was coming clean and he was letting go of his shame. In saying to Theo that (this person) was my sponsor too, I was letting go of some of my shame that I've held on to."
What about Bob? Bob Sirott's nearly three-year run on WGN-AM 720 as host of "The Noon Show" is over. Effective Monday, John Williams will add the hour-long lunchtime program to his regular 9 a.m.-to-noon WGN shift.
The decision on Sirott — who will continue to do a weekend show with wife Marianne Murciano as well as be the station's "signature voice" and work substitute shifts — was one of a series of reductions at the station, both on air and off.
Among those released were veteran newsman Dave Stewart and weekend "Sports Central" co-host Glen Kozlowski.
Sirott added the WGN program to his duties as a WMAQ-Ch. 5 anchor in April 2007. He left Channel 5 in June with pay rather than agree to renegotiate his multiyear TV contract.
"This is good for me because, moving forward, I wanted to be free of the daily 'Noon Show' commitment to work on some upcoming TV opportunities," Sirott said late Friday. "I still wanted a place to hang my radio headphones, and I'll get that. My sense of this is all they're doing is changing their bottom line."