Springer, Saying ‘It’s Gotten Too Personal,’ Quits News Show

CHICAGO — Syndicated talk-show host Jerry Springer, whose hiring as a newscast commentator at the NBC station here led a respected anchor to resign last week, also has left his position at WMAQ-TV.

“I’ll be on tonight--but no more for a while. OK?” Springer wrote Thursday on personal stationery to WMAQ general manager Lyle Bank. “It’s gotten too personal.”

Springer, a former mayor of Cincinnati and an anchor and commentator there, is in his sixth season as host of a program that concentrates on such topics as incest, infidelity and prostitution.

News anchor Carol Marin said she had been disturbed by the trivializing of television news, and Springer’s hiring was “a solid line in the highway I could not cross.”

His first commentary on Monday, a response to Marin, drew controversy.

The Cincinnati Post reported that he’d overblown an anecdote about his tenure as mayor. Springer had said that his parents urged him to approve a permit for neo-Nazis to march because “this is America,” where free speech is paramount. The Post story said that city administrators, not the mayor, would have had the authority to decide how to rule on the permit request.

WMAQ canceled Springer’s planned Wednesday broadcast while conducting follow-up reporting. The ratings for Springer’s debut also were inauspicious--lower than Marin’s farewell broadcast the week before.

Bank said the station had heard from “a number of viewers” opposed to Springer’s hiring. “We appreciate the feedback and feel we are being responsive to it,” he said.

Marin’s attorney, Todd Musberger, said she had no comment, adding: “Let the facts speak for themselves.”

Times researcher John Beckham contributed to this story.