News anchor Rob Braun says it was "time to move on" after 35 years at WKRC-TV because "I don't fit well with the Sinclair News model."
Cincinnati's longest-tenured main anchor, in his first public comment about his departure, says he wasn't fired and he's not retiring.
Channel 12 "is NOT forcing me out," Braun wrote on his Facebook page late Wednesday. "In fact they offered me a generous contract. I am choosing to leave. There is no 'real story.'
"Sometimes in life, you just know, it's time to move on. I don't feel I fit well with the Sinclair News model."
Braun, son of the late Cincinnati variety host Bob Braun, told Channel 12 news staffers Monday that he was leaving June 28, at the end of his contract.
He was hired in 1984, and took over as main co-anchor in 1988 after Nick Clooney left the station. Sinclair Broadcast Group bought the station in 2012.
Braun clashed with his bosses last year when Sinclair ordered news anchors to read a commentary complaining about media companies pushing "their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think." Two Channel 12 staffers said Braun tried to rewrite Sinclair's script in his own words, but it was rejected.
