A longtime meteorologist is quitting his job at an Iowa TV station and plans to change careers after viewer backlash over his “liberal conspiracy theory on the weather” led him to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Chris Gloninger announced Wednesday that he will depart KCCI-TV in Des Moines in July, according to the Washington Post.
The 18-year TV veteran, who joined the CBS affiliate in 2021, told the newspaper he was inundated with “harassing” emails calling him an “idiot” for his “liberal conspiracy theory on the weather” which had him “pushing nothing but a Biden hoax.”
“I was not sleeping,” Gloninger said. “I had bags under my eyes.”
Some of the commenters asked for his address while others vowed to give him “an Iowan welcome you will never forget,” according to the Washington Post.
Another troll angrily urged Gloninger to “go east and drown from the ice cap melting.”
The messages took a toll on Gloninger, who started seeing a therapist and sought treatment for PTSD.
When one of the angry messages appeared in his inbox, he rushed home from the hair salon where his wife was waiting alone and suggested to her that they call the police, according to the Washington Post.
Police in Iowa located a man in the town of Lenox, 63-year-old Danny H. Hancock, who was found to have been the one who sent the threatening messages.
Hancock was slapped with a $150 fine, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Despite the fact that the source of the threatening messages was pinpointed, Gloninger said he had difficulty refocusing on his job.
Gloninger arrived in Iowa’s state capital after stops at TV stations in Rochester, NY, Albany, NY, Milwaukee and Boston.
Just as he had done at his prior post at NBC 10 Boston, he noted how climate change was affecting the local weather in Des Moines — using material prepared by George Mason Univesrsity professor Ed Maibach.
Maibach was the subject of a profile by Washingtonian magazine because of his “Climate Matters” initiative, which promotes “data-driven climate reporting” that is used by “media partners” nationwide to “tell science-based stories about how climate change impacts local communities.”
“When I was in Boston, [I] was preaching to the choir,” Gloninger told Washingtonian.
But Des Moines was like being “in the lion’s den,” the forecaster said.
Gloninger said he had dreamed of becoming a meteorologist since the second grade.
“Yeah. I’m going to miss it,” he told the Washington Post.
“I just hope that this is even more fulfilling than the last 18 years, my next chapter.”
