WKBT's Livingston Makes Morning Show Rounds After Shouting Down Weight Critic

Jennifer Livingston went from WKBT La Crosse morning anchor to social media star to morning show darling, all in the span of a week, after she blasted a man on the air after the man criticized Livingston for being obese in an email to the station.

“Surely you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular,” wrote the man, Kenneth Krause.

Livingston’s intensely personal 4-minute response, in which she discusses the issue of body image and girls and calls for an end to bullying, promptly became a Facebook hit, and put her on the network news circuit this morning.

Appropos to nothing, she apparently happens to be the sister of Ron Livingston, star of the sleeper slacker hit Office Space. Her husband is fellow WKBT anchor Mike Thompson, who anchors the 6 and 10 p.m. news.

Thompson posted the letter on his public Facebook page Sept. 28, and has gotten almost 3,000 comments on the post, overwhelmingly in support of his wife.

Krause criticized Livingston for being a poor role model, as an overweight public personality.

“I am much more than a number on a scale,” Livingston countered.