In a follow-up to the recent story here about the Tennessee Bill to Require Free Speech on Campus an NPR reporter has been fired in response to an unflattering story due to pressure by legislators on the University of Tennessee.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga fired a reporter this week at WUTC, the National Public Radio affiliate, after local lawmakers complained about how she reported on a state transgender bathroom bill.
Jacqui Helbert, 32, reported and produced the story for WUTC, which followed a group of Cleveland High School students as they traveled to the state capital March 7 to meet with Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, and Rep. Kevin Brooks, R-Cleveland, about the legislation.
The story aired on WUTC March 9 and 13, and was posted on the station's website. After it was posted, the lawmakers said Helbert failed to properly identify herself as a reporter during the meetings.
Helbert maintains she acted within journalistic ethics as she reported the story, and she never concealed her intentions or bulky radio equipment. She did not verbally identify herself as a journalist.
"It was glaringly obvious who I was," Helbert said, adding that her NPR press pass hung around her neck while at the capitol.
Helbert said she was wearing headphones and pointing a 22-inch large fuzzy microphone at the lawmakers as they spoke during the meeting.
Archive of the censored story is here.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @10:47PM (2 children)
I was certainly shocked. Then I did some basic research and realized NPR isn't a government agency at all. Like PBS, it receives grant money from the federal government as well as donations from private citizens. The federal government supplies grant money for lots of things: "Anti-tobacco programs, pro-tobacco programs, and Israel!" to quote The Simpsons.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 28 2017, @10:54PM
Don't worry. Being completely factually incorrect won't stop a guy like our jmo!
when an employee of it angers powerful people above them in the chain of command that they can be fired.
Yeah, that never happens in a private company!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by butthurt on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:40AM
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was "created by an act of the United States Congress and funded by the United States federal government."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadcasting [wikipedia.org]
Someone wrote in Wikipedia that NPR was created by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Radio#1970s [wikipedia.org]
However, the pages cited for the claim that NPR was created by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting don't exist:
http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/history.html#history [npr.org]
http://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/history-timeline [cpb.org]
Did they never exist, or were they erased like the Apollo tapes?
NPR was incorporated in February 1970.
http://current.org/1970/02/npr-articles-of-incorporation-1970/ [current.org]
On its board of directors were four people, three of whom worked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting!
John P. Witherspoon was Director of Television Activities for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting one year later--February 1971.
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED055405.pdf [ed.gov]
Ralph W. Nicholson
[...] entered government in 1960 as assistant postmaster general for installations and logistics, and served throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. In 1969 he was named vice president and treasurer of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, where he worked until 1972.
-- http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-01-03/business/9501030040_1_mr-nicholson-postmaster-post-office [chicagotribune.com]
Bernard D. Mayes also worked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/24/bernard-mayes-kqed-fms-first-general-manager-dies-at-85/ [kqed.org]
He was the first chair of NPR.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/10/27/359434925/bernard-mayes-nprs-first-chairman-founder-of-suicide-hotline-dies [npr.org]
Richard D. Estell,
[manager] of radio broadcasting for Michigan State University. His appointment was approved by the MSU board of trustees. Estell succeeds Dr. Lawrence T. Frymire who resigned to become chief of the educational division of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C.
-- https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/31382254/ [newspapers.com]
The Michigan State University and the Federal Communications Commission are both governmental agencies.