BREAKING NEWS -- Another TV Editor Makes A Break For It

(From The Hartford Courant -- By Pat Seremet)

Will there be a change in the weather and a change in the news?

When we learned two weeks ago that WFSB, CHANNEL 3, sports director DINA FALCO was leaving after two years, we knew there would be a change in sports.

Now LYN TOLAN, NEWS DIRECTOR at WFSB, is leaving to return to COLUMBUS, OHIO, where her husband, BRAD BARBIN, will resume his legal career.

A prominent attorney who handled such cases as a successful $51.5 million lawsuit representing FLORIDA against FORD MOTOR COMPANY three years ago, Barbin is returning to COLUMBUS to resume practicing law there.

Tolan and Barbin have four children, ages 10 to 17, and Tolan said she is eager to sell their house in GLASTONBURY and get the kids settled in Ohio.
[Read: Get out of Connecticut.]

What will this change at the top mean for the station?

"CHANNEL 3 has been a wonderful, stable place where you won't see dramatic changes," she said.
[Hmmm...sounds like another place I know.]

When Tolan joined CHANNEL 3 three years ago, general manager ELDEN HALE had heralded her arrival as a signal of the station providing more "hard news, breaking news, real news."

And he's sticking to that pledge with whomever he brings on board as the next news director.

"I don't expect it'll be a long search," he said, "and I don't think there'll be a significant change. Hard news is what we're all about. That's why we win."

As for hiring a new sports director, all Hale would commit to saying is that TONY TERZI, formerly of WTIC, CHANNEL 61, "has expressed some interest."

When asked to note her proudest accomplishments, Tolan noted she "put together the best morning team in the country, who are also good friends with each other."

And, Tolan said, she felt that under her leadership, "we've done great things with the weather." (Well, except for all that snow in winter and humidity in summer.)

"I brought in MARK DIXON, MELISSA COLE," she said about new people on the CHANNEL 3 weather staff. "And SCOT HANEY -- he plays a fun guy, but he knows weather."