NPR firing over Occupy Wall Street
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Caitlin Curran, a freelancer for "The Takeaway" which is co-produced by NPR-member station WNYC and Public Radio International, was fired from her radio show after her boss discovered pictures of her participating in the Occupy protests.
The station claims that since they are covering the Occupy Wall Street protests, having employers participating in the protests violates their editorial standards and every ethic of journalism.
Curran's boss saw a picture of her holding a sign that paraphrased text from "The Atlantic's" Conor Friedersdorf.
This story is similar to the firing of Lisa Simeone from NPR after it was revealed that she was working as a spokesperson for Occupy D.C.
Curran's and Simeone's stories shows how far the people of NPR will go to prove they are not a liberally biased program.
It goes against individual rights to fire people just because of their participation, on their personal time, in a non-partisan movement.
Americans have the constitutional right to protest freely without fear of punishment.
Journalists' jobs are to report the news in an unbiased manner, but what they do in their free time is their decision.
Journalists should not have to alter their lifestyles for their jobs.
