A public radio reporter in West Virginia was sacked after she reported on the abuse of people with disabilities in state-run facilities. Her report posed a political embarrassment for West Virginia’s Republican governor, Jim Justice, whose former senior aide is now the top executive at West Virginia Public Broadcasting. That ex-aide wound up firing the reporter. For the news-consuming public, this case serves as a warning sign of the dangers when news organizations fall under the control of political actors.
The Post-Dispatch’s founding publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, warned of such political meddling when he stated in his Platform that journalism must “always be devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news (and) always be drastically independent.” Without that independence, predatory plutocracy can and will find a way to control coverage and manipulate the message to serve elite interests.
The West Virginia story so rankled National Public Radio that it devoted a segment on Feb. 13 to the case, exposing the political conflicts of interest at its sister network that appeared to have been behind the firing of reporter Amelia Knisely. Ironically, the West Virginia network carries National Public Radio content, including the “Morning Edition” segment where the national piece aired. It also subscribes to the guidelines in the NPR Ethics Handbook and the Code of Integrity for Public Media, which mandate guarding against political influence in news coverage or even the appearance of such influence.
