Second Public Radio Freelancer Fired for OWS Support

[Zyzfyx]

Source: Slate

A second public radio freelancer has lost her job for taking part in the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Caitlin Curran, who says she was fired from her freelance position with WNYC’s The Takeaway after her bosses learned of her participation in a demonstration in New York City, recounted her story in a first-person account for Gawker that was published Friday.

Curran’s version of events breaks down roughly like so: She attended the event more or less as a spectator, but when her boyfriend began to suffer from "sign-holding fatigue," she briefly took over. A photo of her, sign in hand, quickly made the rounds on the Internet. Thinking she had a great story on her hands, she pitched a segment on her newfound notoriety to her producers, who were less than impressed with her journalistic chops and fired her, saying that she had "violated every ethic of journalism."

The news of Curran’s firing comes one week after another public radio freelancer, Lisa Simeone, lost her gig after her bosses discovered she had served as an occasional spokeswoman for one of the OWS offshoots in Washington, D.C.


Read more: http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/10/28/caitlin_curran_the_takeaway_public_radio_freelancer_fired_for_oc.html

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Mind you, neither of the two worked directly for NPR, but still a sad commentary.

[secondwind]

1. It sure is.... a person should be allowed to speak his/her mind without losing his/her job....

What is the difference between holding a sign at an OWS rally, and actively campaigning for Obama or Romney or someone else?

[NICO9000]

2. I wonder if these women have any recourse they can take

I would think that unless they signed some piece of paper that explicitly forbids the exercise of their free speech, they should be able to sue these frightened little pishers.

[Rabblevox]

3. NPR = Now Prostituting for Republicans. /nt

[Zyzfyx]

12. I was thinking "Nixionian Propaganda Redux"

[jerseyjack]

4. This wasn't an NPR doing. WNYC is a public radio station.

It is a subscriber of NPR broadcasts. The Takeaway is one of the worst programs produced and distributed by WNYC. She should consider herself lucky she is out of there. Damned if I would want The Takeaway as a reference for where I worked.

[No Elephants]

21. Assuming you are correct about the show being bad, she wasn't fired for a bad show.

[rurallib]

5. Fox is the Republican Propaganda Media and that's OK.

[Zyzfyx]

28. It shouldn't be OK

But hey, that's the unfortunate reality.

[sulphurdunn]

6. "violated every ethic of journalism."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[No Elephants]

22. I don't remember when journalism had ethics. Edwardian Age, perhaps?

[sulphurdunn]

24. Stone Age?

[RKP5637]

7. Yep, worker intimidation - saying let that be a lesson to the rest of you slobs working

here. Acknowledge your supposed rights in a democracy questioning the 1% and you will be fired, so STFU and go back to your serf jobs or we'll show you the door too or plant drugs in your desk.

[frylock]

8. that pic has been making the rounds here..

[SoapBox]

9. WTF????

I stopped listening to the national broadcast a couple years ago.

NEVER will I listen again and NEVER give a dime.

Un-frack'n-believable.

[cvoogt]

10. yeah.

I sent them this message:

"I find the timing of the recent dismissals of Caitlin Curran and Lisa Simeone curious, considering your recent fall membership drive. I debated whether to donate, but after the firings I have sworn to never donate a single red cent to NPR. I am disgusted. Reporters can attend events and remain objective. Other, higher-up NPR reporters do this all the time and face no repercussions. Attending events such as Occupy Wall Street protests is what I would EXPECT NPR to be doing, but sadly your coverage of the protests and related police brutality has been sorely lacking. I now listen to your programming in a whole new light."

[blueclown]

15. If you are going to send them a message, you may want to get your facts straight.

WNYC is not owned by NPR. WNYC simply buys programming from NPR. That's it. While the reason she was fired is completely absurd, we as a community need to operate in the theater of facts.

[cvoogt]

16. agreed, but ...

if you read my message closely, you see I did not say NPR actually fired them. I know they didn't; they used other underhanded techniques instead.

[blueclown]

18. You said you'd never donate a single red cent to NPR.

Why would you tell WNYC that? NPR doesn't own WNYC.

[cvoogt]

19. my beef is not with WNYC per se

but with NPR itself. Yes, the local stations are partly to blame for caving to political pressure / fear of being swept up in charges of conflict of interest, but I think much of that is whipped up by NPR itself. Remember Acorn & Ron Schiller? I think ever since then NPR has striven to look as non-partisan as possible. NPR also dropped "World of Opera" and I strongly suspect them of having put pressure on WNYC in this case as well. Recent reporting on the Oakland riot has also been less than stellar in its glossing over the Matt Olsen incident in Oakland. The video is pretty damning. Maybe it's my local DC WAMU affiliate I should be blaming for that.

Another side to this, for me anyway, is the definition of public vs private. I believe we need strong independent media, and will gladly support that. I just don't think NPR nor the affiliates in these recent stories are that media. I'll put my money and efforts where I think they will be effective.

To that end I put up http://www.99percentmap.com/ yesterday in between projects for customers.

[otohara]

11. Intimidated Much?

NPR is spineless!

[alp227]

13. does she do political stories?

I don't listen to the Takeaway show, it doesn't play in my area. Is that a general news talk show or something?

[Downwinder]

14. I'm glad I didn't sign that support NPR petition.

[Zyzfyx]

20. Me too

And to be honest, I've only made contributions to PBS relevision, never NPR.

[No Elephants]

23. I stopped my PBS contributions once Moyers Journal went off the air.

[Zyzfyx]

25. Now THAT was a loss!

It was the one show (on any network) I made sure I watched live, just in case my "VCR/DVR/Inscrutable Device Only A Five-Year-Old Knows How To Program" messed up.

[krabigirl]

26. Same here, but I have never supported them. Well, at least since they cheered on the Iraq war.

[Zyzfyx]

27. Iraq?

I must say, I never really thought NPR was a cheerleader for the war. I dunno, maybe it was just by comparison to the (non-PBS) TV networks.

[Rex]

17. They all work for the same paymasters.

Many mean well, but the boss doesn't like OWS. Nothing about it, all a bunch of 'hippies' that don't have jobs. Maybe they don't have jobs, because they lost their house in a criminal robo-signing by a paymasters corporation. Whatever happens, it could not be more obvious that The Media works for a boss that doesn't like OWS. Nothing about it...

When corporations own the media and the government, then they don't need the people...well, just for labor. As Rupert Murdoch, he knows all about ruling a country or two.

[Name removed]

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