Anatomy of a Hit Job --KGO 's Sze/Cibrowski Behind Petition; 29 Women Journalists 'Petition' Hardly Spontaneous

ABC Broadcast Center at 900 Front Street, SF

Last Wednesday, before the Chronicle story involving yours truly was published, I received this e-mail:

Its validity was corroborated Friday when the Chron story ran. (Notice the time stamp too)

From: <m6r2fi+3g5uxdstyw8w@guerrillamail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 2, 2020 at 5:46 PM
Subject: Petition
To: rich.lieberman@gmail.com <rich.lieberman@gmail.com>

Just so you know. You're about to get hit with a well deserved shit storm.  And the person behind the petition is Tom Cibrowski at KGO.  And he is PISSED.  So it's a battle of the fat guys!  Have fun.


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Here's the letter in case you didn't see it, signed by 29 various TV News anchors, reporters, media figures.


Notice that of the 29 signatures, 15 are from KGO-TV, which is important to note since I got a subsequent e-mail from a KGO (contact) last Saturday night:

GOinsider@protonmail.com>	Sat, Sep 5, 9:46 PM (3 days ago)
to me

Dear Rich,

I cannot say who I am but you must trust my information is 100% correct and if you need to confirm then please ask your sources at KGO.  Whoever is telling you Tom was behind the email is not correct.  It was Kristen Sze's idea 1000%  Tom went along with it because he allows his people to speak out.  But you should realize who your enemy is here, it's Kristen.  She is insecure.  If you write she is insecure then she will lose her shit haha!   She also cherry picked who to sign it and asked the weakest people and people she could easily convince.  Heck, look how many people she asked that don't even work in news anymore!  Like their opinion matters anymore.

Kristen chooses her allies wisely in the newsroom.  She is very divisive, a BULLY and 90% of people can't stand her because she is a rude/selfish bitch.  If only the managers would actually say something to Tom or Tracy then we would all be much happier at KGO.

Tom is a very good person and does care about his people.

************************************************************************************************

This e-mail was also validated namely because it too contained information that only the e-mailer would know.

But to be fair, I texted Sze, a KGO anchor who I'd previously wrote positive things to get a comment and reaction.

She didn't respond. Weird, because only hours earlier, Sze had called me. Why? I had no idea but I figured maybe she wanted to shoot the shit with me about the Chronicle story. I didn't think anything of it until I got the Saturday e-mail.

Now, it all made sense.

As would a petition organized, created, and signed by various people in the biz but it now appears that this so-called "petition": was well organized and created to embarrass me. It did not but that's not the issue here.

It appears that the petition was in fact, begun by a KGO employee --an ABC/Disney employee who, with her boss, circulated the e-mail and had it signed by the women, some of whom may have been pressured to sign their name.

Hardly a spontaneous effort by the gang of 29 to show their disgust with me, don't you think? More like someone going out of their way to HIT someone hard and attempt to besmirch their name and image.

I'm not a lawyer. I don't think this is a libel thing but I do think this shows the letter may have been improperly used and in not an entirely ethical manner. At the very least, using a company e-mail and higher-up (Tom Cibrowski, GM/VP) to help guide it and make it stick, would be in violation of ABC/Disney company policy. 

Just a guess.

I have received a mass volume of email and notes from all this. I am both flattered and overwhelmed by the attention, both positive and negative but it has resulted in a great deal of publicity. ALOT.

That said, a hit job it was and a hit job it will continue to be no matter the good things that came my way, directly and indirectly.

Tom Cibrowski