Former WABC anchor, funnyman, and testicular cancer stricken Steve Bartelstein has found himself a new gig: at WCBS. Ousted for allegations (repeat: allegations) of sleeping through anchor shifts, coming in to work high, and sexual harassment, he's now made good on September's rumors that CBS was courting him, reports FTVLive.

Former WABC anchor Steve Bartelstein breaks his code of silence, tells gossip granny Cindy Adams he has a job offer from CBS and, oh yeah, testicular cancer, thereby making it damn near impossible for us to work in one measly sexual harassment joke.

Also, it turns out he's (sort of) funny! When the ever-sensitive Cindy asks him how he expects to anchor the news after losing his hair from chemo, Bartelstein replies:

"Hey, Mother Nature has already been doing that work for me. I'll tell you one thing, I won't go the hairpiece route. I'll be knowledgeable, charming - and bald."

Hey, it worked for Matt Lauer.

Yesterday's call for clarification about Steve Bartelstein's numerous scandals at WABC yielded some fruitful results. We heard the channel had begun looking into former allegations against the axed news anchor, mostly of the sexual harassment variety. Turns out, they're investigating indeed.

CONTINUED »

Steve Bartelstein's bye-bye from WABC isn't just a fairy tale ending for a storybook filled with alleged meth use and sleeping through live broadcasts. The latest unsolicited word on the street is WABC is looking into "more harassment allegations." Something about a writer Steve followed to Chicago? (Uh, what?) Hopefully, you know more. Or maybe Richard Huff does! He's so very awesome at taking our stories one step forward. Or just rewriting them.

Exclusive

"Page not found." That's the error WABC's website will hand to you if you try to bring up the profile of news anchor Steve Bartelstein. (Google Cache version here.) Which makes sense — given that he was just axed, we're told.

The Eyewitness News this Morning and Eyewitness News at Noon anchor has been clashing with brass for some time now, we're told, but "the last straw" was when he slept through a Good Morning America insert on Friday. GMA was covering the Bronx fire (that killed 10 people) and Steve was expected to chime in during the commercial break to plug WABC's coverage. But he was a no show, and the network was forced to air two minutes of weather and traffic. Producers were pissed.

Steve has a history of not showing up for work and, allegedly, a raging crystal meth addiction. We're told ABC usually allows one rehab stint for employees — or 16 less than Hollywood casting directors allow talent.

Then again, you'll remember way back to Dec. 2005, when a similar WABC incident went down with Bartelstein, where WABC's coverage preempted GMA, and Steve and co-anchor Lori Stokes "looked as if they were blissed out on hash brownies." And back in November, he showed up 20 minutes after the 5am broadcast began.

Oh yeah, and what was that about the "M4M stalking" lawsuit that was filed against him?

It's as if, we don't know, he had it coming.

Earlier this morning we turned your attention to Alessandra Stanley's overbaked (and yet, somehow, still undercooked) assessment of how the MTA strike was the best possible news story for local stations: all the helicopters and breaking into regularly scheduled programming that 9/11 called for, but without that obnoxious side effect of death and destruction. What we did not point out, however, is that neither Alessandra nor her New York Times editors know how to use Google.

And when WABC's local "Eyewitness News" pre-empted "Good Morning America" for a second day of live coverage, the morning anchors Steve Bertelstein and Lori Stokes looked as if they were blissed out on hash brownies.

Actually, the M4M colleague stalker of a WABC morning anchor is named Steve Bartelstein. Tomato, potato, right?

Media Ode to the City That Walks [Alessandra Stanley, NYT]
Earlier: Katie Couric's cackles rain down on our frozen faces