No WAAY: TV Reporter Fired for Personal Blog Disclosures

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Shea Allen, until last Friday an investigative reporter for Huntsville, Alabama, ABC affiliate WAAY-TV, this week appeared on The Today Show, Inside Edition and gave interviews to more than a half-dozen radio stations. Not bad exposure for a young reporter who attended Georgia's Kennesaw State University.

The problem is that Allen garnered national attention, not for her journalistic prowess, but because she was fired by her employer concerning a personal blog item she posted a week ago entitled Confessions of a Red-Headed Reporter.  Initially, she took down the blog post at the station's behest, but then re-posted it with the explanation: "The post was taken down because I was momentarily misguided about who I am and what I stand for." Channeling freedom of the press icon John Peter Zenger, she went on to say: "To clarify, I make no apologies for the following re-post. It's funny, satirical and will likely offend some of the more conservative folks. But it isn't fake and it's a genuine look into my slightly twisted psyche."

What exactly were the reporter's "confessions" or insights that prompted WAAY, which has not commented officially on the "personnel matter," to part ways with Allen? The revelations include:

• I've gone bra-less during a live broadcast and no one was the wiser.
• My best sources are the ones who secretly have a crush on me.
• I hate the right side of my face.
• I'm frightened of old people and I refuse to do stories involving them or the places they reside.
• I've taken naps in the news car.
• I've stolen mail and then put it back (maybe).

Some members of the nation's ever-growing perpetual rage industry are in a dither that Allen's First Amendment rights were trampled  by WAAY-TV in its ham-fisted effort to silence her message.  It could be an over-reaction on the station's part, or maybe the station was embarrassed that it was parading this on-the-airhead on its newscast as a broadcast journalist, the same description that has been applied to the late Peter Jennings and Bill Moyers, for example.

Even though there was no social media in his heyday, somehow the anchor-groupie staff of  "TUOL" can't imagine Walter Cronkite posting: "I'm doing the newscast commando-style tonight without my tighty-whities."

Allen follows in the footsteps of the 1-day wonder news anchor who appeared on Today as part of his national rehabilitation tour after he was fired for dropping an F-bomb and other expletives during his cringe-inducing, flop-sweaty inaugural newscast.

It's becoming less of a mystery as to why public disdain for journalists is on the rise.

'Botox Brittney' Story Needs an Injection of Media Ethics

Image via WikipediaIt's hard to find anyone to root for as the saga of "Botox Brittney" Upton, the 8-year-old girl who allegedly received Botox injections and virgin waxes, and purportedly was in line for a nose job and breast enhancement surgery, continues to unfold, or more accurately, unravel.

The stinkyjournalism.org Website today chronicles the depressing saga, which began with a March 23 story in the U.K. tabloid The Sun about 34-year-old Sheena Upton, a Birmingham, England, native residing in San Francisco with her daughter Brittney. The article, which included a photo of Sheena purportedly injecting her moppet's forehead with Botox, triggered a hailstorm of criticism and condemnation, which naturally, led to television appearances by Mom & daughter on ABC News' Good Morning America and CBS News" Inside Edition.

Sometimes, however, publicity is not such a good thing, as Mom learned when child protective services took Brittney away from needle-happy Sheena. Suddenly, Sheena Upton was calling herself Kerry Campbell and telling TMZ (not to be confused with The New York Times) that the whole saga was a hoax. She told the gossip site that she didn't even know what Botox was and that the whole story was staged.

If it's true that it's not true (so to speak), then the tv news organizations and the newspaper should be admonished for being so easily pranked and for not investigating the story thoroughly before it went viral. But as long as the media outlets already are at the proverbial woodshed, they also should be taken to task for engaging in mindless checkbook journalism, which is no substitute for real journalism.

According to Stinkyjournalism.org, The Sun allegedly gave Upton $200 for the story, fake name and faux photo. Inside Edition allegedly doled out $9,500 to Upton/Campbell and GMA was prepared to pay $10k to a British booker for the story. Rather than characterize the payment as checkbook journalism, GMA considered the $10k a photo licensing fee.

The sensationalism-hungry morning show viewers, eager to be outraged at the drop of a heat or needle-pricking of a pre-teen forehead, should be having some mea culpas with their morning coffee. The devoted staff of "TUOL" was angered by the distraction of the Botox story, which interrupted journalists and caused them to lose count of the number of Schwarzenegger love children.