ABC Blew It on Co-Anchors' Drama

The private lives of two on-air personalities at ABC got caught up in the tabloids this month, and the network has made things worse in how it handled things, writes Helaine Olen in a Washington Post op-ed. The drama involves Amy Robach and TJ Holmes, co-anchors of the Good Morning America spinoff GMA3. The two are married to other people, but gossipy stories emerged of them having an affair. After the reports surfaced, ABC pulled the pair off the air, at least temporarily, saying the scandal had become "an internal and external distraction."

In doing so, ABC "inadvertently offered up a master class in the wrong way to go about managing a workplace romance," writes Olen. "No one needs the c-suite to weigh in on consensual behavior between equals that takes place outside the workplace—no matter how attention-getting it is." For one thing, the two are co-anchors, so there's no concern of "hierarchy" concerns at play. Yes, the affair is surely painful for their individual families, but this is not a "workplace issue," writes Olen. Office romances are incredibly common, and ABC bosses should have butted out. "We all deserve a zone of privacy—even canoodling co-anchors." Read the full op-ed. (More Amy Robach stories.)