Arthur Chi'en
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Arthur Chi'en is a New York City TV reporter who has worked for New York 1 and WCBS-TV, but is currently with WPIX-TV. Most of his stories are related to the city's transportation system. Recently, nominee and Winner of the 2007 Emmy news award in two categories, spot news and breaking news.
He is most famous for a shock jock stunt that cost him his job with WCBS-TV [1]. On the morning of May 19, 2005, Chi'en was in the middle of a report about Subway Swipers when Opie and Anthony intern Nathaniel Byran came up behind him and held up a poster. He was joined by Crazy Cabbie of the Howard Stern show. The two men began making gestures towards the camera and repeated the show's name as part of their Assault on the Media campaign. After finishing his intro, Chi'en turned around and shouted, "What the fuck is your problem, man?" at them. Unfortunately, the WCBS-TV studio was slow to roll tape, so Chi'en was not clear yet, and the expletive went out over the air. Due to the station's zero-tolerance policy regarding profanity, Chi'en was fired soon after the incident. The sentence that got Chi'en fired became a popular saying on the show, and is repeated frequently, usually with a juvenile emphasis on the word "man".
Soon after his firing, many people began criticizing WCBS and Opie and Anthony. They believed WCBS went too far in firing him for something he did not intentionally do. A Current Affair even had a poll that day after his firing. People blamed Opie and Anthony as they did not like the campaign.[citation needed]
On May 31, 2006, Arbitrator Richard Adelman ruled that WCBS acted wrongly in firing him after the incident, saying: "The evidence reveals that Mr. Chi'en did not intend for his words to be heard on-air, that this was a singular incident in which the word "fuck" was used outside any sexual context, that the Station did not receive a single complaint about the incident... Furthermore, the applicable Company policy, which, among other prohibitions, prohibited the word "fuck" on the air, does not require the termination of employees for a violation of the policy, and Howard Stern was not terminated for far more egregious on-air conduct. In short, the Company did not have cause to discharge Mr. Chi'en." [2]
In late August 2005, Chi'en signed a new contract with WPIX-TV and remains a general assignment reporter, continuing to report on the city's transportation issues [3].
He made a few guest appearances in the crime show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, playing a news reporter.
