The Laid-Off Reporter and the $225 Cab Fare

This is funny, or at least what qualifies for funny in these dour economic times. 

WLKY Louisville reporter Lanny Brannock was let go from the station recently. Working mostly out of Frankfort, Brannock used to take the station truck home each day to Paris, about 43 miles away. 

Brannock was called into the Hearst-Argyle station’s Louisville HQ, reports Scott Sloan of Kentucky.com, and was given the bad news. Brannock wondered how he would get home, which was about 90 miles away, according to Google Maps. Instead of having a staffer drive him, WLKY called Brannock a pre-paid cab–which cost some $225 and took an hour and a half. 

Brannock writes on his MySpace page:

Mr. Ed Price was my driver. Ed is a well worn, hard lived, slightly stubbled man with glasses, a hat and a weird smell. I’m guessing mid 50’s, but looked mid 60’s. I may have detected a hint of alcohol or bad cologne and I can’t decide which it was. Either way, I just lost my job, had some stuff to read and I wasn’t really in the mood to talk.

Turns out Mr. Ed had some valuable life lessons to pass on to young Lanny Brannock.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.