EDITOR'S NOTE: This version corrects employment at WTOL.

WNWO-TV, Channel 24, veteran reporter Lou Hebert was fired by the ratings-challenged station Friday. Hebert, 61, had been working as senior reporter and mentor to the station’s younger staff. His dismissal follows the firing of WNWO morning meteorologist Michael Schlesinger more than a week ago.

“They want to make changes. They’ve made that very clear,” Hebert said. “I’m not part of that change. I would have liked to have been, but so be it. I’m just looking forward now to where I’m going next and what I’m doing next.

“I’ve been doing this now for 42 years. I would like to get a few more years.”

Hebert, a Genoa native, joined Channel 24 in the 1970s as a reporter and anchor.

He left the station in the early 1980s, worked for two affiliates in Denver, then returned to WNWO as news director in 2001. Under his guidance, Channel 24 went from also-ran in the local news ratings to strong contender for second place.

He resigned from the station in late 2004 after a woman’s breast in a men’s magazine inadvertently made it on air during a feature on a Playboy Playmate from Bowling Green. Hebert worked at WTOL-TV, Channel 11, as assistant news director in the mid-2000s, before returning to Channel 24 in 2009.

First Published May 24, 2011, 4:30 a.m.