Continued: C.J.: Someone had license to delete Facebook item

It appears that Mayor R.T. Rybak didn't appreciate learning that a FOX9 story last spring about hizzoner's driving around without a license got nominated for an Emmy.

"I took a picture of the [Upper Midwest Emmy Awards] program with my iPhone where it said, 'Mayor's license suspended' and put it on Mayor Rybak's wall and I tagged him on his Facebook.com," Charles Carlson, an operations director at a Twin Cities architectural firm, told me. "And I wrote on his wall, 'Mayor, congratulations. The piece about you getting your license suspended when you didn't know you had been driving for three months [almost] won an Emmy.' He deleted it all in the morning without even saying, 'Thank you for letting me know.'"

Someone who understands Facebook better than I do informed me that it's possible the mayor does not maintain this page himself and that the person deleted the note because of the bloody cheek of Carlson's posting. I called the mayor's office twice to find out if a) Rybak didn't finally see the humor in the posting, b) the mayor is prematurely in D.C. measuring drapes at some department of government, or c) I need David or Brian Anderson to act as my go-between since Rybak seems to willingly take part in their hijinks.

A few WCCO-TV viewers thought the edgy promo raised an excellent question: "wtf?"

Scott Libin, WCCO's news director, said, "It was NEVER supposed to air."

Last Sunday in a promo about a story about a surgical error, with voice-over from WCCO-TV anchor Amelia Santaniello, the message "wtf?" appeared on the TV screen.

"It was an idea that came up in a brainstorming session, after hours. 'What if we were to mock up a spot like this? We could look at it and see if we'd ever go that far. How far would we go? What if we really did something different and risky? We won't put it on the air, we'll just put it together to see what it looks like,'" Libin said.

Oops.

"What failed was the safety net. I don't think that will fail again," Libin said sternly.

Former KSTP-TV morning anchor Angela Davis is being reunited with her former co-anchor there, Mike Binkley, on WCCO-TV's morning show.

Kind of easy to see this one coming Friday, as former KSTP news director Scott Libin is now WCCO's ND.

I don't even have to ask Binkley if he's thrilled. It was well known at KSTP-TV that Binkley wanted to quit about 30 minutes after Davis decided that life's just too short to continue working at a place like KSTP, which was a much more pleasant place to work when Libin was there.

After Libin's successor at KSTP was installed -- gee, what is his name? -- Davis famously joked that the difference between their management styles was night and day, like working for Mr. Rogers vs. Tony Soprano.

When Libin was at KSTP, he brought Davis back from Texas, moved Binkley from weekends to weekdays alongside meteorologist Jim Guy and traffic guy Rusty Gatenby, and they produced a great show.

"They did, in fact, go to number one," Libin said. "That is not something that's happened often at KSTP over the years. I believe with a brand like WCCO's behind them, I think they can do fabulous things here, too."

Binkley left TV to create a business that tells the stories of regular people in video. "I guess it's been successful," Libin said. "I know it's been rewarding. But I don't think it's always that easy to get television out of your system and I do speak from some experience.

"If I could populate an entire newsroom with people who have Mike's passion and work ethic, I would love to do that. He's going to be hugely popular internally as well as on the air. He's just an excellent guy."

Binkley is replacing Bill Hudson, who is returning to reporting.

FOX 9 anchor Alix Kendall made the most of the trick Mr. Magic performed Thursday.

"Now, this is a dream come true for some of the people that she writes about in her Star Tribune column," Kendall said. "How many requests have you had for this decapitation?"

Mr. Magic said, "Since we announced this, several thousand."

Aren't they funny!

Guess who was the only person who tried to interrogate me about how the trick was performed? I told ferocious Alix that Mr. Magic made me sign a nondisclosure form, so I'm not talking!

Special thanks to Laura Andren, a floor director who taped part of the footage at startribune.com/video for me. That Alix talks like a woman who has forgotten that I have a video showing how she makes the women's dressing room look as though it's been hit by a makeup and clothing bomb.

C.J. is at 612.332.TIPS or cj@startribune.com. E-mailers, please state a subject -- "Hello" doesn't count. Attachments are not opened, so don't even try. More of her attitude can be seen on FOX 9 Thursday mornings.