Jimmy Chitwood
Hall of Famer
Chicago's highest-paid news personality suing company that designed and built her $3 million mansion because she's black. Jesse Jackson immediately plans protest march...
link
some excerpts...
Chicago's highest-paid television news personality claims a contractor who designed and helped build her $3 million Lincoln Park mansion skimped on luxuries and did shoddy work because she is black.
Diann Burns, top news anchor at WBBM-Channel 2, recently filed suit against Chicago-based Metzler/Hull Development Corp., demanding at least $600,000 on claims of fraud and discrimination.
She and her husband, talent agent Marc Watts, list 84 complaints about their 5,752-square-foot home on North Burling Street -- from the angle of the garage floor not being right to chipped mahogany doors being installed.
here's a great pic of this outstanding member of the American media
The couple says Metzler/Hull cut corners, thinking a black couple wouldn't notice. The suit, however, does not say what leads Burns and Watts to believe that.
They accuse the company of seeing a black couple as being "gullible and inexperienced in construction matters," so it could "deceive and take advantage of and defraud" them.
The lawsuit marks the second time Burns has invoked race as an issue in a recent controversy. Burns, a fixture on local newscasts for more than two decades, was angered that after 18 years with WLS-Channel 7, the station took her off the air several months before her contract was set to expire in 2003. She and her husband vigorously worked the local black media, which reported calls for boycotts against Channel 7.
She made a highly publicized jump to Channel 2, where she reportedly makes more than $2 million a year as news anchor alongside Antonio Mora.
some excerpts...
Chicago's highest-paid television news personality claims a contractor who designed and helped build her $3 million Lincoln Park mansion skimped on luxuries and did shoddy work because she is black.
Diann Burns, top news anchor at WBBM-Channel 2, recently filed suit against Chicago-based Metzler/Hull Development Corp., demanding at least $600,000 on claims of fraud and discrimination.
She and her husband, talent agent Marc Watts, list 84 complaints about their 5,752-square-foot home on North Burling Street -- from the angle of the garage floor not being right to chipped mahogany doors being installed.
The couple says Metzler/Hull cut corners, thinking a black couple wouldn't notice. The suit, however, does not say what leads Burns and Watts to believe that.
They accuse the company of seeing a black couple as being "gullible and inexperienced in construction matters," so it could "deceive and take advantage of and defraud" them.
The lawsuit marks the second time Burns has invoked race as an issue in a recent controversy. Burns, a fixture on local newscasts for more than two decades, was angered that after 18 years with WLS-Channel 7, the station took her off the air several months before her contract was set to expire in 2003. She and her husband vigorously worked the local black media, which reported calls for boycotts against Channel 7.
She made a highly publicized jump to Channel 2, where she reportedly makes more than $2 million a year as news anchor alongside Antonio Mora.