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Media Views

Wisconsin Leader-Telegram: Ethics Dispute Leads to Resignation of WEAU News Director (1/15/08) by Julian Emerson

The sudden departure of local television news director Glen Mabie brings attention to a new instance of executives facilitating outside businesses' influence on news programming.
According to Mabie and other sources close to the situation, station management attempted in recent weeks to negotiate a deal with Sacred Heart Hospital in which TV-13 would run medical stories featuring personnel from that hospital and its affiliates but not employees of other Chippewa Valley hospitals or clinics. That didn't sit well with Mabie, who said an exclusive deal with Sacred Heart posed an obvious conflict of interest that called the newsroom's objectivity into question.... "My problem with this is it was going to dictate newsroom content," said Mabie, whose last day at TV-13 was Friday. "I told myself that I could not with a clear conscience go into that newsroom and tell the staff that this was a good thing."

For a similar breach of journalistic ethics involving Connecticut Public Television, see Extra!: Fear and Favor 2005 (3-4/06) by Julie Hollar, Janine Jackson and Hilary Goldstein

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