Reporter firing shows real threat to public-media independence

[Commentary] Not enough public media outsiders seem worried about the constituency that, in my personal experience and according to my reporting, actually does compromise editorial integrity: the organizations that hold stations’ Federal Communications Commission licenses. And there’s no better example of the cause for concern than the recent firing of Jacqui Helbert.

Helbert, a reporter at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s WUTC public radio station, angered some of the state legislators who hold the university’s purse strings. As Helbert pursues a lawsuit against the university, ShameOnUTC.org—a site launched after her termination—has provided jaw-dropping documentation of Helbert’s saga, including her surreptitious audio recordings of meetings with colleagues. The relationship between Helbert, WUTC and the University of Tennessee offers the public a laundry list of everything that can go wrong in a system where universities hold the licenses of—and therefore effectively own—47 percent of the public radio station organizations and 34 percent of the public television orgs. (Figures were provided to me by the Station Resource Group.) In the wake of Helbert’s firing, people across public media are reckoning with a serious ethical hazard that was built into their system—and that may be impossible to fully exorcise.

[Adam Ragusea is a journalist in residence and visiting assistant professor at Mercer University’s Center for Collaborative Journalism and hosts Current.org’s podcast The Pub.]