Ex WUTC reporter getting support over firing
CHATTANOOGA (WDEF) – The case of the fired WUTC reporter Jacqui Helbert will speak at a Protect Freedom of the Press event Wednesday at UTC.
She was fired from her reporting job for WUTC, accused of violating NPR journalism standards.
Helbert was part of a high school student group meeting with state lawmakers on the bathroom transgender bill.
After she aired interviews with the lawmakers from the meeting, they complained that she had not identified herself as a journalist.
That would be a violation of NPR protocol.
Photo courtesy of Jacqui Helbert
But Helbert maintains she was wearing a press badge, headphones and carried recording equipment.
She thought it was obvious that she was a reporter.
She maintains that lawmakers pressured the university over her report, which was taken down from the station website.
On News 12 Now this morning, she told her side of the story.
She says she has been surprised by the support she is getting on the UTC campus and from the national journalism world.
She hasn’t decided on her next job yet.
The Wednesday event will be from 3-5 outside Hunter Hall at UTC.
I can't tell you how overwhelmed I am right now…. NPR…THE NPR…has vindicated me…https://t.co/V40vuCfTpU
— Jacqui Helbert (@jacquihelbert) March 28, 2017
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