Arizona Reporter Claims He Was FIRED After Reporting On Lisa Marie Presley's Alleged 'Takedown' Of Scientology After Church Complained
Feb. 2 2023, Published 8:00 p.m. ET
A news anchor lost his job after running a piece that Lisa Marie Presley was allegedly planning a Church of Scientology "takedown" before her death; however, he blames the religious organization — and not what his bosses called "sloppy" reporting — for his firing, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Dodge Landesma, 32, had been working at KYMA in Yuma, Arizona, for two months when he ran a nearly two-minute piece about Lisa Marie's connection to the Danny Masterson rape trial, which he admitted was not vetted by his bosses.
Landesma claimed that when Scientology caught wind of the news piece, which was titled Lisa Marie Presley was planning Scientology takedown before her death, the religious group's spokeswoman Karin Pouw called and asked that he take the story down.
Pouw has longtime been the media's communication to the church. He allegedly told her he'd look into it but left the piece up.
In the story, Landesman reported that Elvis Presley's late daughter was allegedly prepared to testify in court that her friend was reportedly assaulted by Masterson. He said Lisa Marie was also going to tell the jury that she was allegedly pressured by a member of the church to convince one of Masterson's accusers not to report the alleged incident to the police.
According to Landesman's reporting, Lisa Marie was planning to "testify in support of her friend who was one of Masterson’s alleged victims," adding, "she was preparing to declare that her friend told her she was raped that night."
It's important to note that Masterson's case ended in a mistrial on November 30 after the twelve jury members could not agree on a verdict.
In his piece, Landesmon claimed she never got the chance because she was never called to testify.
The reporter connected Presley and Masterson through Scientology, alleging that at one point, they had been good friends until she left the religion around 2014.
He told the Post that Pouw called him two hours after they first spoke, and then again the next day asking him to delete the story.
The reporter said his bosses, the news director, and the general manager of the station had his back when they summoned him into a meeting to discuss his piece.
They asked for his sources and told him they felt like his story was "sloppy," but claimed they would "fight for me to keep my job with corporate" after he provided "reliable sources" that allegedly back up his reporting.
That changed days later when Landesman claimed he was fired after his bosses called him too reckless.
"They also said corporate was afraid of a lawsuit," he told the Post. "It was because they got scared of Scientology. They decided to cower to a paper tiger worth billions of dollars."
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The network removed the story, replacing the piece with an editor's note reading, "In an exercise of editorial discretion, NPG of Yuma-El Centro Broadcasting, LLC has elected to unpublish this piece. After careful review, and given information that came to light after the piece was published, NPG of Yuma-El Centro Broadcasting, LLC has determined that it can no longer stand behind the piece because, among other things, it contained aspects of opinion by the author."
RadarOnline.com has reached out to Scientology for comment.
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