Former Phila. anchor files defamation suit against CBS station

A former Philadelphia news anchor is suing the local CBS affiliate there for defamation, enumerating several disgraces she claims were foisted on her in the name of publicity.

Alycia Lane’s lawsuit alleges that an on-air report after KYW-TV fired her has sunk her career:

"After assessing the overall impact of a series of incidents resulting from judgments she has made," the station’s Jan. 7 statement read, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, "we have concluded that it would be impossible for Alycia to continue to report the news as she, herself, has become the focus of so many news stories."

That wording, the suit claims, implied Lane couldn’t work as a journalist anywhere in the world, after her rough year in the gossip pages.

KYW-TV issued a statement calling Lane’s claims "without merit" and said it "will defend the case vigorously in court."

Lane was arrested in late 2007 in New York on a felony charge of assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors have since agreed to drop the case in exchange for good behavior, but the incident revived earlier New York Post headlines on an e-mail Lane sent to a married ESPN sportscaster of herself in a bikini.

In the suit, Lane dates her allegations of public embarrassment back to 2004, when she says KYW-TV had her appear on the show Dr. Phil.  The focus it put on her love life, she claims, initiated her branding as "someone who sought to make herself the news rather than to merely report the news."

The former anchor is seeking unspecified damages, The Inquirer reports.