Public Radio Newsroom Employees Told to Stay Quiet: They Do

Two Ohio public radio stations - WKSU and WCPN - plan to merge.   That's a major story.   It's a story neither newsroom did.   Why?   Because management told newsroom employees to say nothing.

Discussions on the merger were done in secret.   There was no public discussion.  None. 

The newsroom employees told to be quiet did just that.   Rather than report an important story, they stayed quiet.

What an embarrassment to public radio.   What an insult to journalism.    At least the local nonprofit newsroom, the Portager, did the story.  

Check the Portager's Reporting Here

Why Don't Media Corporations Care About Sexual Harassment?

Ask any media corporation if it cares about how women are treated and it will offer one bromide after another voicing concern.   But for too many media corporations, what they say is contradicted by what they do.

For many, their employment contracts require mandatory arbitration.   And there is no exception for gender and sexual harassment.   So if a woman is sexually harassed at a commercial TV station in Ohio, the woman cannot take her harasser or her employer to court.

What does RTDNA say about that?   Nothing.   What does SPJ say about that?  Nothing.

Listen to Gretchen Carlson, the woman who sued Fox News chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment and won a 20 million dollar settlement.   She's started a nonprofit, Lift Our Voices, an organization dedicated to doing something about NDA's and mandatory arbitration clauses, employment policies that silence women.

After listening to Gretchen, call your local TV station and ask them when they will change their employment policies.    It is time to stop muzzling women.  Women should have the right to take their harasser and their employers to court and hold them accountable.