Joe Delaney is a veteran news anchor for Channel 8 and the harasser of his colleagues in the interest of taking out competition in the studio so he doesn’t let his career go. He is a suspect in the murder of one of his colleagues, Dawn Prescott.
History[]
Delaney had decades of celebrated success in his career, winning an Overseas Press Club Award for covering the Fall of Saigon. Even when he was in rehab from a cocaine addiction, the studio received inordinate letters to get him back on the show. He hated seeing younger faces in co-anchors he’d run segments with, gritting his teeth through the banter and current events updates when hoping for his glory days.
Fearing being fired, Delaney planted spyware on his colleagues computers, which he used to track their computer activity and even delete messages between and meant for them. Seeing Dawn Prescott as major competition with her political news coverage, Delaney doctored images of her to look scanty and sent them to colleague Al Lee to paint a picture of an affair. Al’a wife Sharon was furious and threatened Dawn as a consequence. Going further, Delaney used Sue Martin’s email while she was out of town to send the messages to gossip blogger Stan Berry, which got Dawn demoted to community news reports.
After Dawn was murdered and the detectives were led to the message leaks, the bugs were traced to Mahoney. Pleading his case to deaf ears, he gave the detectives printouts of the messages he deleted under the false hope that he wouldn’t be reported to his bosses. It was later revealed the story Dawn was preparing a comeback for, the Ponzi scheme of Frederic Matson, got her killed, as Delaney and Sue buried the material, Delaney personally notifying Matson to sabotage the report. Sue was infuriated to find out about Delaney’s computer viruses, and Delaney was facing charges of negligent homicide if he didn’t testify against Matson. After bemoaning he didn’t wanna bid his career adieu yet, Delaney accepted his obligation to testimony.
Delaney was never charged with his crimes, and he finally accepted his retirement, delivering a final broadcast and a goodbye to his viewers. (L&O: "Anchors Away")