According to the Washington Post Doug
McKelway, a reporter for the city’s ABC affiliate
WJLA,
has been fired after he was
suspended last month over a confrontation with his boss. The
conflict arose because of a McKelway report about a demonstration
by environmental groups, who protested during the BP/Gulf disaster
over oil industry campaign contributions to members of Congress.
Here is the report he delivered on July 20 from Capitol Hill:
As you see, McKelway was tasked with reporting on a miniscule
protest. If it had been pro-life activists or some other
conservative cause, he would have been given another assignment. So
he made it newsworthy by introducing relevant information such
as:
How few demonstrators there were, which in order to be
worth reporting, would require the speculation he delivered about
“where the movement is headed right now”
Identifying the protestors as representatives of “far
left” environmental groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the
Earth, which they are. Apparently it is only proper to identify
ideology when the groups are “right-wing”
or on the “far
right”
President Obama’s $77,051 in campaign contributions from
BP, leading McKelway to raise the possibility that the
environoiacs’ are engaging in a “risky strategy” by accusing
Congress members of taking “dirty oil money”
That (publicly) unpopular climate/energy legislation
passed by the House faced such a tough road in the Senate that
Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to even use the term
“cap-and-trade”
That Democrats, as reflected by polls everywhere, face
huge losses in Congress in November, which would seem to pertain to
whether or not the Senate takes up a vote on
cap-and-trade
That the last thing Dems, faced with dim electoral
prospects, want to do is pass legislation that “imposes huge
escalations in your electricity bill,” which would seem to fit a
presidential candidate’s assertion not too long ago that
cap-and-trade would make electricity rates “necessarily
skyrocket”
WJLA news director Bill Lord cited “insubordination” and
“misconduct” in McKelway’s firing. Maybe that was the case, if
McKelway’s response crossed the line, but the fact is he was called
into the boss’s office for the type of reporting the formerly
mainstream media does all the time.
