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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSickouts at Sinclair/Fox 'kill a cop' TV station in Baltimore?
Source: FTVlive
When FTVLive broke the news that WBFF had fired Reporter Melinda Roeder and a longtime Photographer over the misleadingly edited "kill a cop" story, Sinclair brass was hoping that would be the end of the controversy. It is not.
Sources tell FTVLive that Roeder, as well as a Producer at the station have saved all of the emails back + forth between them and News Director Mike Tomko on the day that story ran. As FTVLive FIRST reported, insiders claim that it was Tomko who told Roeder to do the story and pointed her to the questionable video.
Many inside the station feel that Roeder and the Photog wear being used as nothing more than scapegoats and staffers are pissed.
... Word is that staff has been calling in sick as part of a protest as to what happened. One source tells FTVLive that there is talk about a mass sick out by the station's photographers, to protest the firing of one of their own.
Read more: http://ftvlive.com/todays-news/2015/1/4/sick-out-at-sinclair-station
gopiscrap
(23,765 posts)OregonBlue
(7,755 posts)sympathy for the other two. It doesn't matter if it was their boss who came up with the idea. They still perpetrated a nasty hoax that they knew was false. So, they should all go.
LindaSue
(11 posts)Reputable insiders can confirm, as well as documentation that exists, that the reporter and photographer were UNAWARE of the edited video that was supplied by the news director. I am sure they are playing their cards close due to future legal implications.
I hope they all walk out! I have head that two more have quit over this and I just saw the anchor announce on their Face Book page that is is leaving Fox 45 WBFF Baltimore.
OregonBlue
(7,755 posts)Adenoid_Hynkel
(14,093 posts)I had to work two years in a station after they took it over. Their management is easily the most corrupt and crooked I've seen. They love shifting blame for their screw-ups onto underlings.
Knowing as I do the memos they sent dictating content and pushing rightwing crap (God, I wish I'd save those to give to Media Matters or someone), I am not surprised in the least that this was a management-driven story shoved onto some young newbie reporter, who followed orders wanting to keep her job, maybe not even relaizing the implications of what they were pushing and distorting.
Then, when it blew up in Sinclair's face, they, of course, shoved the blame onto her.
I know of at least two firings at the station i worked at where the company's corporate HQ did the same thing to local employees.
evil, evil company. I can't say what I really think of them, without going into eight paragraphs of nothing-but-profanity that would turn you white to read.
LindaSue
(11 posts)Their anchor Jeff Brand has announced on the stations's facebook page that he is leaving the station.