KNBC morning anchor Alycia Lane was interviewed by Brian Williams on NBC’s primetime special report Monday night. Lane was in Boston to watch a friend run the marathon and was eating lunch less than a block away from the finish line when the bombs exploded.

“We could feel the ground shake below us, and everything on our table shook,” Lane recalled. “Ten seconds later, a second blast hit and we looked outside and saw a plume of smoke up in the air. We saw the building across from the spectator stands, which was a mirrored tall office building, shaking. And that’s when panic struck everyone in that restaurant.”

Watch:

Philadelphia County Judge Allan Tereshko has dismissed the remaining claims filed against former KYW anchor Larry Mendte by ex-co anchor Alycia Lane. Lane, currently an anchor at KNBC in Los Angeles, accused Mendte of invasion of privacy. The Philadelphia Daily News has details:

Tereshko dismissed the civil case filed against CBS 3, but had allowed some of the charges against Mendte to stand, pending further investigation.

Those final claims were dropped last week after the judge found that Lane had deleted key emails from her computer.

“As far as I’m concerned, Lane already got her pound of flesh from Larry in the federal criminal case. Larry has done nothing but try to make amends and move on, but she has nothing but vengeance in heart,” said Mendte’s attorney, Julia Morrow.

Lane’s attorney, who says the the judge was against Lane from the start of the trial, said he plans to appeal the ruling. He said he was “elated with happiness” by the final dismissal, which allows him to appeal the case to Superior Court.

A Philadelphia judge has dismissed former KYW anchor Alycia Lane‘s defamation lawsuit against the CBS O&O.

Lane, who was a KYW anchor from 2003-08, accused her former station of defaming her after she was terminated from the station after she was involved in a physical altercation with a New York City police officer. She also brought a lawsuit against her former co-anchor, Larry Mendte, after he hacked into her email and leaked private information.

The judge threw out some, but not all, of the claims against Mendte. He pleaded guilty to hacking into her email in 2008.

Lane currently anchors the morning newscast on KNBC, the NBC O&O in Los Angeles.

KNBC, the NBC O&O in Los Angeles, has announced several changes to its morning and midday newscasts.

Michael Brownlee (pictured) moves from the noon newscast to the morning newscast, where he will co-anchor alongside Alycia Lane. Brownlee replaces Kathy Vara, who is shifting to weekend evening anchor at KNBC.

Replacing Brownlee at noon is Whit Johnson, who is joining KNBC from CBS News. Johnson will c0-anchor with Lucy Noland beginning in mid-September. The noon newscast will also expand to a full hour on weekdays.

“It’s part of NBC4’s culture to produce high-quality news content for Southern California’s unique audience,”  Todd Mokhtari, KNBC vice president of news, said in a statement.  “These changes reflect our priority to deliver on that tradition every day, every newscast.” Read more

Natalie Morales is the preferred pick to replace Ann Curry on NBC’s “Today” show, at least among TVSpy readers.

According to a recent TVSpy poll, posted last week amid reports that Curry was leaving “Today,” Morales is the top choice, followed very closely by Savannah Guthrie, who many believe will ultimately replace Curry.

The poll listed five choices as Curry’s replacement.  In addition to Morales and Guthrie, there was Hoda Kotb, Robin Roberts, and Sue Simmons.  Simmons, who recently left WNBC after more than three decades at the anchor desk there, was the sentimental favorite, coming in third place with 20.29% of the votes. Read more

Former Philadelphia anchor Larry Mendte has penned a column in the April edition of Philadelphia magazine about the “desperate” state of local news in the city. Mendte, currently a commentator at WPIX in New York City, was fired from KYW in 2008 after a highly-publicized tryst with co-anchor Alycia Lane. He writes:

The world has changed, and TV news hasn’t. Anchors sit at a desk at a designated time, tossing to reporters at the scene of the story you already read about that morning. The weatherperson talks forever in front of a map; the sports anchor shows you 10 seconds of highlights from three games. As it was in the ’70s, so it is now. My kids and their friends from elementary school could do a similar newscast with Flip cams, Skype, a green screen and video from YouTube, and it would be a heck of a lot more interesting.

Local news has to start not only changing with the times, but catching up with the times. We already have the information; tell us what it means.  Read more

Despite the best efforts of CBS’s legal team, it appears that the trial of Alycia Lane‘s civil suit against Larry Mendte and CBS will remain in Philadelphia.

According to the Philadelphia Daily News, the Pennsylvania state supreme court has ruled that the trial will remain in the city where Lane worked alongside Mendte on the KYW anchor desk.  The ruling is a victory for Lane, whose legal team has been fighting to keep the trial in Philly while CBS has attempted to move the proceedings to New York, citing a clause in Lane’s contract that stipulates such a move. Read more

Dawn Stensland-Mendte, who formerly worked as an anchor for Philadelphia’s WTXF, is lashing out at critics of her husband Larry as he prepares to begin a civil trial with Alycia Lane.

Last week, the infamously outspoken writer Buzz Bissinger wrote a scathing column in the Philadelphia Daily News calling Mendte a “cowardly, conniving criminal with no credibility” while championing Lane, who he considers a friend. And today the Daily News published an editorial response from Stensland-Mendte who criticizes Bissinger’s “rant” as being “void of facts” and outlines the 2007 criminal case that Lane faced after allegedly assaulting a New York City police officer.

Here’s an excerpt from Stensland-Mendte piece:

Buzz, I forgive you. Better middle-age married men than you have done something stupid because of their feelings for Alycia Lane.

In your impassioned rant, void of facts, you made an ironic “call” for better journalism in covering the case. It is the one thing we can agree on. As a wife who believes that her successful TV career was collateral damage in an orchestrated media campaign against my husband, I could match your passion.

Just as the media circus was beginning in Philadelphia for the Alycia Lane-Larry Mendte civil case, CBS Corp., the anchors’ former employer, filed an appeal with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking that the case be moved to a different venue.

According to WCAU, Chief Justice Ron Castille issued a stay in the case just moments before jury selection was set to begin Friday morning so that the appeal could be heard.

Earlier this morning, the civil judge issued a gag order prohibiting the use of electronic devices in the courtroom.

The case was frontpage news as Lane and Mendte arrived in Philadelphia this week and local stations, including WCAU and WTXF, discussed the trial during their morning newscasts today. Read more

“This Time It’s Personal” reads the frontpage headline on the Philadelphia Daily News as jury selection began today in the civil suit between former KYW co-anchors, and alleged lovers, Larry Mendte and Alycia Lane.

While Mendte and Lane’s He Said-She Said drama continues in a Philadelphia courtroom today, local media outlets are focusing on two of the juicier episodes of the anchors’ relationship, which have been illustrated in recent court depositions…

The Tiffany’s Necklace:
Mendte bought an $800 platinum necklace for Lane after he lost a bet with his co-anchor over the color of white zinfandel. According to court documents, Lane and Mendte had a friendly argument about the wine and when it turned out that Lane was correct in saying that the wine was pink, not white, Mendte said that he owed her and she suggested something from Tiffany’s.

So Mendte went out and purchased an $800 necklace from Tiffany’s using his credit card, an act that would eventually be discovered by his wife while checking the AmEx statement. Read more