Amy Jacobson was fired after being filmed by Stebic neighbor having pool party in a bikini with craig stebic (the guy whos wife disappeared). she was trying to cover the story as a reporter but was also hanging out with him and their kids on her own time as friends.
Oh, great... I forgot about that one.
Even in small-market media, that's a big “no-no” and it got a lot of attention in the journalism world because she should have known better.
It was also a serious wake-up call to a lot of us in the media that our own actions are being monitored by the public. My recollection is this reporter got outed because a neighbor videotaped the reporter in her bikini and handed the videotape to a news crew from a competing television station. I'm going by memory so if I'm wrong, I apologize in advance — maybe somebody has a link.
It is impossible to avoid conflicts of interest outside large cities, but an attractive female reporter going over to a source's home in a bikini — even if she brought her kids — shows serious lack of judgment. This doesn't make things look very good on this story with the reporter's own history.
People know that reporters aren't monks or nuns (many are **VERY** far from that, especially in the television media where physical appearance is a job requirement) but personal behavior and views of a reporter are not irrelevant if they indicate and influence on how a story gets reported.
That last part of your recollection was technically wrong. She wasn’t *hanging out* as *friends* with Stebic. And, she fully admits she made a really bad judgement call that day. She was trying to speak with his sister who was visiting that day as well. But, that’s neither here nor there as this story is about Bialek, and not Jacobson.