PressEthic

A link off Romenesko led me to a story about a Roanoke, Vir. meteorologist who was fired last week after his nude photo was posted on MySpace.

From The Roanoke Times' article: "Channel 10 interim General Manager Shane Moreland said in a statement Thursday that Singleton broke the morals clause of his contract, which stipulates that he must not be involved in anything deemed 'offensive or out of line with community standards.'"

But who determines what the community considers vulgar and offensive?

Jamey Singleton, the WSLS Channel 10 weatherman, told The Roanoke Times that the picture was taken when he was getting out of a shower at a friend's house. His friend took the nude photo as a prank. Singleton didn't think the photo would end up on the internet. His friend posted it in his profile, perhaps because he was upset when Singleton stopped being his friend. Singleton contacted MySpace and the photo was taken down within hours, but it still circulated through his email inboxes in the workplace and the community.

Singleton wasn't voluntarily "involved" in the situation. He didn't intentionally take a nude picture of himself and put it on the internet. I'm not convinced he broke the station's moral code. However, TV news is much more appearance-based than print journalism. Would a print journalist get fired in the same situation?

This incident might've been the "straw that broke the camel's back," Singleton told the Times. He is a former heroin addict who came forward after a different meteorologist had an overdose in a hotel room. Singleton was clean and went through rehab when the news broke, but management probably had their eye on him.

The Roanoke Times:

Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute in Florida, said she believed WSLS would not have fired Singleton if he'd had a clean record.

Still, she said, on-air journalists are always judged as representatives of their newsrooms.

"If you do something stupid or say something bigoted or do something juvenile, it can come back to haunt you," she said.

"He may be in the circumstance of needing the benefit of the doubt too many times," she added.

Perhaps. But it'd be interesting to see what would've happened if it was just a nude photo that led to the firing. Did he really break a moral code or is it just a matter of keeping up appearances, as McBride said?