Health & Fitness
TV Station WDIV Circles Wagons Around "Super Drunk" Employee
A drunk WDIV employee lands in jail. Where's the station's stance on drinking and driving?
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.
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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!
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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!
