FReeper gets DUer Fired.... [View All]

This is how DUer Misanthrope got fired yesterday...

"I ran across a little ethical dilemma in my daily web surfing. In the course of my "know your enemy" reading of liberal web sites, I came across a thread on a certain hard-left message board. The poster (whom I will call X so as not to identify him/her yet) works at a radio station and was asked by his/her supervisor to plan some respectful mourning programming for tomorrow (Friday) in observance of Reagan's memorial. Instead, X asked the other readers of the site to brainstorm ways he could ignore/violate that instruction and attack Reagan in ways subtle enough that his/her actions wouldn't be obvious to most listeners. X has planned a lineup intended to be subtly offensive to Reagan's memory.

X put enough information about him/herself in the thread that it was fairly easy for me to identify the radio station X works at, as well as the name/email address of the supervisor who made the request. X specifically commented that if he/she were found out, X could be terminated from the radio station job as well as another job he/she holds. So...do I email the thread to X's boss? On the one hand, it seems incredibly offensive that a radio announcer would violate a boss's request to respect a national day of mourning because of a political grievance, especially by planning a radio selection designed to insult the man being mourned and using public money and donations to do it (this is a public radio station). On the other, it seems cruel to rat a person out to their boss based on what they assumed (even though it's a poor assumption) to be a fairly anonymous Internet post to political allies.

What do y'all think? Should I drop the subject or email X's supervisors with the link to the thread? Or...should I take the middle ground and post the thread and radio station info here, but not forward it to the boss?"

and then they sent this to his employer...:

"Dear Ms. Breland:

In surfing the Internet today, I came across a posting on a message board that appears to be from one of your station's announcers. While he does not reveal his real name in his posting, he indicates that he works for the NPR affiliate in Mobile, AL, and that he is the announcer for the 10 A.M. - 12 P.M. weekday programming block.

In his post, this person stated that, presumably due to a personal political grievance with the late President Reagan, he would not comply with instructions to announce an appropriately respectful memorial program for tomorrow's day of mourning for President Reagan. He solicited ideas that would permit him to ignore or circumvent those instructions and subtly insult Mr. Reagan through his choice of programming. The announcer posts under the user name "misanthrope"; you can read his posting and the replies by him and others at this link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1755097#1759511

I am sure you would not want what should be a respectful and nonpartisan observance of the loss of a former President disrupted by the political agenda of one of your announcers. As a taxpayer and supporter of public radio, I trust that you will ensure that tomorrow's memorial programming reflects the solemnity of the death of a former President. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,


In case it was unclear, the radio station is Mobile 91.3 at http://www.whil.org and the link in the email is to the thread at (shock and surprise!) DU. It's probably unnecessary to bombard the station with letters, nasty or otherwise, but the program director and general manager are aware of what happened. I'll post again if I hear anything back.

and here's what the employer said:

"Thank you for bring this matter to our attention. It is truly sad when
people you work with and trust feel it necessary to do these things.

Jeffrey R. Stoll, General Manager"


It appears Mr. Misanthrope won't be undermining President Reagan's memorial after all. Hey - I think I just Freeped someone! :-p

Motherfuckers.......

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1151209/posts