Statement From NPR’s Michael Oreskes And Mark Memmott On WUTC : NPR:
“March 27, 2017; Washington, D.C. – The University of Tennessee Chattanooga has said the decision to terminate the employment of reporter Jacqui Helbert was made by university officials, not the news editors at WUTC. The station’s news staff says the decision to remove from WUTC’s website the story that Helbert had done about meetings held by state legislators with students from a Gay-Straight Alliance Club was also made by university officials, not WUTC’s editors. (That story has been archived here.)
Serious questions have been raised about whether university officials were pressured to take those actions by state lawmakers — who could cut state funding to the school and WUTC.
In both cases we at NPR believe the decisions should have been left to the journalists in charge. Taking the decisions about enforcing ethics out of their hands did more to undermine the station’s credibility than the original infraction.”
(Via.)
