ABC - GMA ADMITS BOOKER WAS "QUITE AGGRESSIVE"

An ABC spokesman has conceded that a new booker for Good Morning America was "quite aggressive in calling" the parents of a St. Petersburg, FL teenager who had already appeared on NBC's Today show to tell about her persistent hiccuping that has lasted more than four weeks. However, in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider denied a report that appeared in the St. Petersburg Times that Chris and Rachel Robidoux had received 57 phone calls at their home, hotel and cellphone from the GMA booker and that she had slipped notes under their door. But while calling the 57 figure "a bit of an exaggeration," Schneider said, "I think the number of calls strikes everybody as being a lot." Meanwhile, Today's executive producer Jim Bell told the Inquirer that he was not surprised by GMA's aggressive pursuit of the girl. After all, he said, "These are the people who had a company jet fly the Michael Jackson jurors to New York the day after the trial. There's a certain pattern of behavior there." (At the Anna Nicole Smith hearing in Florida on Wednesday, Howard K. Stern, Smith's beau/attorney, testified that the syndicated Entertainment Tonight flew him to the Bahamas after her death and paid other expenses in return for interviews during the flight and in the Bahamas.)

22/02/2007