{"id":3591,"date":"2008-07-29T09:04:39","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T17:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=3591"},"modified":"2008-07-29T09:04:39","modified_gmt":"2008-07-29T17:04:39","slug":"eric-longabardi-finally-meets-mirthala-salinas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=3591","title":{"rendered":"Eric Longabardi Finally Meets Mirthala Salinas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ersnews.com\/permas_stories_updates\/Mirthala_OpenHouse.htm\">From ERSNews<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">&nbsp;Last July, just after ERSNew.com starting posting on the web, the story of Los Angele&rsquo;s Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa having an &ldquo;affair&rdquo; with local Telemundo anchorwoman Mirthala Salinas splashed onto the internet first, followed by the traditional mainstream news media, jumping on the bandwagon. &nbsp;ERS was right there with them. Our stories and coverage of the scandal put our fledgling web news site on the media map. &nbsp;Nearly overnight we went from ERS who?, to being a primary media source for major media outlets from Los Angeles to London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"220\" alt=\"\" width=\"270\" src=\"http:\/\/ersnews.com\/images\/Mirthala2\/Picture%207.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">For over three months we investigated, reported and sometimes even went looking for the Mayor&rsquo;s girlfriend Mirthala Salinas. &nbsp;&nbsp;We never found her, although we came close many times. &nbsp;Considering ERS is a two man operation in the field and only part time at that, we did a lot better than news organizations with a lot more people and a lot more resources. &nbsp;&nbsp;Ultimately Mirthala Salinas, the once rising star in Spanish language TV News in Los Angeles lost her job. She and the Mayor also split shortly thereafter. &nbsp;She later got a job in Spanish radio after the furor over the entire scandal died down. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">As the radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would say, now the &ldquo;rest of the story&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">During the entire Mirthala and the Mayor or &ldquo;Summer of Love&rdquo; as the scandal became known, Ms. Salinas was living only a few blocks from where I was lived in Studio City, CA. &nbsp;I own a home there. &nbsp;She owned a condo. &nbsp;We even did a story on her purchasing the condo from one of the Mayor&rsquo;s supporters, a key figure in a political PR and lobby firm. &nbsp;Even the owner of the local corner market where we both shopped on occasion told me Mirthala regularly showed up to shop there. &nbsp;I never saw her, never happened to run into her.&nbsp; All that changed a few Saturdays ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">Many months ago I moved from Studio City, back to the more native confines of Orange County &#8212; back behind the &ldquo;Orange Curtain&rdquo; as Los Angelenos like to say. Since then I&rsquo;ve been trying to rent my house in Studio City. &nbsp;So far no luck, but prospects are looking up. Over the past few months I&rsquo;ve been holding open houses on Saturday&rsquo;s to show the house to prospective renters. &nbsp;This past Saturday I had an unexpected visitor who was looking for new place to live. &nbsp;Her name was Mirthala Salinas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"200\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/ersnews.com\/images\/Mirthala2\/Picture%206.png\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">That particular Saturday morning I waited for the many callers who had made &ldquo;appointments&rdquo; to see the house. &nbsp;They came and they went, some loved the house, others just came and went. &nbsp;Then I opened the door and there she was. &nbsp;Mirthala, the woman I had been seeking to talk with for so many months. &nbsp;I had tried her on the phone before, but she never called me back. &nbsp;She was there with her new husband, a man named &ldquo;Yani&rdquo; who I also recognized.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">They had no idea who I was. &nbsp;&nbsp;They came in and I showed them around the house, giving them the &ldquo;tour&rdquo; I&rsquo;ve now perfected over the many weekends. Mirthala was very cordial and friendly. She was quite shy and very polite. &nbsp;She asked me about the house and I showed her around. &nbsp;Her new husband &ldquo;Yani&rdquo; seemed interested; he asked me if I was possibly interested in selling the house or doing an option to buy it. &nbsp;He explained that they lived in a condo nearby and how hard it was to get a loan to buy a house. &nbsp;When they were ready to go Mirthala asked me a few questions more about the house and took down my number in her cell phone to get back to me if they were interested. &nbsp; I haven&#8217;t heard from them since.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">Nonetheless, if Mirthala and Yani read this, nothing personal, it&rsquo;s just my work as a reporter I&rsquo;m sure you&rsquo;ll understand. &nbsp;Nonetheless, either way the house is still for rent and I am interested in selling if you want to talk. &nbsp;If not, it was nice finally meeting you and good luck with your new marriage. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"style4\" align=\"justify\">Mirthala, give me a call you&rsquo;ve now got my cell phone number, don&rsquo;t be shy, I&rsquo;d still like to interview you for ERSNews about that whole dating the Mayor thing last summer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From ERSNews: &nbsp;Last July, just after ERSNew.com starting posting on the web, the story of Los Angele&rsquo;s Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa having an &ldquo;affair&rdquo; with local Telemundo anchorwoman Mirthala Salinas splashed onto the internet first, followed by the traditional mainstream news &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=3591\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143,177],"tags":[10772,29866,10774,10521,10775,10773],"class_list":["post-3591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eric-longabardi","category-mirthala-salinas","tag-anchorwoman-mirthala-salinas","tag-eric-longabardi","tag-jumping-on-the-bandwagon","tag-mayor-antonio-villaraigosa","tag-radio-broadcaster","tag-spanish-language-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}