Well, this is just downright embarrassing.
Last week when rap star Jay Z held serve at a concert in Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena in hopes of spurring a big voter turnout of millennials and African-Americans for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, local ABC affiliate WEWS Good Morning Cleveland anchor Jackie Fernandez and meteorologist Somara Theodore not only waited in line on company time, but blasted photographs of their little excursion all over social media.
Of course, this isn’t the sort of thing you would expect to see from a news anchor who is supposed to at least appear to be seen as a fair and impartial.
Surprisingly, Fernandez and Theodore have since been fired from the station. Jeff Harris, news director of WEWS Channel 5, said in a statement that “[I]t is important to the reputation of our station and to Scripps, our parent company, that our news coverage is fair and unbiased.”
“Those crucial qualities have been emphasized repeatedly during this contentious election season,” Harris added before concluding:
“We remind our journalists frequently to avoid even the appearance of support for any sides of this election. It is imperative that we maintain objectivity in the work we do to serve our communities in NE Ohio.”
Both Fernandez and Theodore had been new faces on the Cleveland station as they were introduced as members of a “fresh and hip news team” in new promos. Fernandez was named as one of Cleveland Magazine's Most Interesting People of 2016 and profiled by The Plain Dealer in July. Theodore was recently featured in SCENE Magazine's People issue
Ironically this happened at a time when Scripps, the corporate entity that owns WEWS5, posted a message on their website cautioning employees to “...be extra careful of not participating in any political activities from now and until the election...”
Oooops.
