Journalist Fired For Anti-Obama Column [Archive] - Debate Policy

Jeff

08-02-2013, 11:53 PM

Well we seen where the media finally trashed Obama and now a journalist from the paper is fired , and ya wonder why the media lets Obama do what ever he wants, myself I would have to say the hell with it , this country was founded on freedoms and I will be damned if some commie president will shut me up

Albert Camus said: “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.” One of the base principles upon which our country was founded was freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Freedom, in its most ideal form, sustains our society on multiple levels. Specifically, freedom of the press turns stone into glass, so that we can live in a more open and transparent society. The endangerment of any freedom is a step toward tyranny, but the endangerment of press freedom is the first step. And once one step is taken, the object in motion will continue to move forward.
Read more at http://lastresistance.com/2930/journalist-fired-for-anti-obama-column/#xF3q175ZcufEYIvG.99

Kathianne

08-03-2013, 12:02 AM

Well we seen where the media finally trashed Obama and now a journalist from the paper is fired , and ya wonder why the media lets Obama do what ever he wants, myself I would have to say the hell with it , this country was founded on freedoms and I will be damned if some commie president will shut me up

Albert Camus said: “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.” One of the base principles upon which our country was founded was freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Freedom, in its most ideal form, sustains our society on multiple levels. Specifically, freedom of the press turns stone into glass, so that we can live in a more open and transparent society. The endangerment of any freedom is a step toward tyranny, but the endangerment of press freedom is the first step. And once one step is taken, the object in motion will continue to move forward.
Read more at http://lastresistance.com/2930/journalist-fired-for-anti-obama-column/#xF3q175ZcufEYIvG.99

Jeff, some of the sites you link to are creating problems with my old. on it's last legs computer. I'm concerned about this one. Can you give me the name of the reporter and the outlet that fired him? Thanks.

Jeff

08-03-2013, 12:05 AM

Jeff, some of the sites you link to are creating problems with my old. on it's last legs computer. I'm concerned about this one. Can you give me the name of the reporter and the outlet that fired him? Thanks.

Here ya go Miss Kat and I got it from a e mail I got from Last Resistance sorry for the problem

“The Chattanooga, Tenn. Times Free Press fired writer Drew Johnson for penning an op-ed entitled “Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough,” despite the fact that the editorial was widely read.”
Read more at http://lastresistance.com/2930/journalist-fired-for-anti-obama-column/#lZc1Rw7y6Gq1IywG.99

Kathianne

08-03-2013, 12:16 AM

Thanks, Jeff!

From Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/drew-johnson-anti-obama-headline-fired_n_3696534.html?ir=Media

Drew Johnson: I Was Fired Due To 'Political Pressure' Over Anti-Obama Headline (VIDEO) Posted: 08/02/2013 1:08 pm EDT

Drew Johnson, the editor who was recently fired over a headline that told President Obama to "shove it," hit back at the newspaper's claims about his firing in an interview with HuffPost Live on Friday.

Johnson, who ran the Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial page, penned an editorial that read, "Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough." The newspaper said that he was fired (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/drew-johnson-fired-chattanooga-obama-headline_n_3691125.html) for changing the headline at the last minute in violation of editing policies.

On Friday, Johnson told HuffPost Live's Josh Zepps that that wasn't the case at all. He said that the policy was instated two days after the editorial was published, and that he had regularly changed headlines without approval prior to that. He attributed his firing to "political pressure" from readers who disagreed with his piece, and in light of Obama's visit to Chattanooga (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-s-goodman/on-his-jobs-tour-obama-to_b_3678474.html).

As for the headline itself, Johnson said, "I was hired specifically to be the conservative, free market, limited government editorial page editor of one of the most conservative editorial pages in America. So what I was doing was representing a voice that reflected my readers."

Earlier HP coverage:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/drew-johnson-fired-chattanooga-obama-headline_n_3691125.html?utm_hp_ref=media

Drew Johnson, Chattanooga Editor, Fired Over Anti-Obama Headline The Huffington Post | By Jack Mirkinson (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-mirkinson) <script data-readbyplayerseed="true" type="text/javascript"> (function($){ huff.js('jquery/jquery.tooltip.hp.js', function(){ $('.fb-tooltip').show(); $('.twitter-tooltip').show(); $('.social-icons-border').hide(); $('.posted-and-updated').css('display', 'block') $('.fb-tooltip').toolTip({ toolTipWidth : 250, html : 'Get updates from Jack Mirkinson\n \n \n \n \n Like (http://www.debatepolicy.com/"javascript:void(0);\")\n
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' }); }); }(jQuery)); </script> Posted: 08/01/2013 3:28 pm EDT | Updated: 08/02/2013 1:28 pm EDT

An editor has been fired for telling President Obama to "shove it" in a headline.

Drew Johnson, who led the editorial page at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, ran a critical column (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/30/take-your-jobs-plan-and-shove-it-mr-president-your/?opinionfreepress) about Obama with the headline, "Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough."

This apparently did not sit well with Johnson's superiors, who promptly relieved him of his duties. They told (http://www.chattanoogan.com/2013/8/1/256161/Times-Free-Press-Fires-Editor-Drew-Johnson.aspx) the rival Chattanoogan that Johnson's headline was "inappropriate" and that he had changed it at the last minute in violation of "the normal editing process."

Johnson fired back on Twitter:

Drew Johnson @Drews_Views (https://twitter.com/Drews_Views) <iframe data-twttr-rendered="true" title="Twitter Follow Button" style="width: 59px; height: 20px;" class="twitter-follow-button twitter-follow-button" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/follow_button.1374787011.html#_=1375506868865&id=twitter-widget-6&lang=en&partner=undefined&screen_name=Drews_Views&show_count=false&show_screen_name=false&size=m" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
I just became the first person in the history of newspapers to be fired for writing a paper's most-read article. http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/30/take-your-jobs-plan-and-shove-it-mr-president-your/?opinionfreepress … (http://t.co/BPOTzihZoT)
<time pubdate="" class="dt-updated" datetime="2013-08-01T17:37:42+0000" title="Time posted: 01 Aug 2013, 17:37:42 (UTC)">12:37 PM - 1 Aug 2013</time> (https://twitter.com/Drews_Views/statuses/362990534505148418)

1,788 Retweets 456 favorites

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Jeff

08-03-2013, 12:19 AM

Thanks, Jeff!

From Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/drew-johnson-anti-obama-headline-fired_n_3696534.html?ir=Media

Earlier HP coverage:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/drew-johnson-fired-chattanooga-obama-headline_n_3691125.html?utm_hp_ref=media

The Last Resistance sounds a lot cooler :laugh:

Kathianne

08-03-2013, 12:25 AM

Heck, even the WSJ speaks up, Taranto of course and perhaps not in the way most would think the response would be:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324136204578643982827602900.html

BEST OF THE WEB TODAY (http://online.wsj.com/public/search?article-doc-type=%7BBest+of+the+Web+Today%7D&HEADER_TEXT=best+of+the+web+today)
August 2, 2013

         Scenes From a ShovingJohnny Paycheck costs Johnson his paycheck.

By
JAMES TARANTO (http://topics.wsj.com/person/A/biography/5474)

President Obama gave a speech about jobs in Chattanooga, Tenn., this week, and left a job opening in his wake--though he couldn't save the job of the man who formerly held the position. Drew Johnson (http://twitter.com/Drews_Views/status/363019331300364291) is now using Twitter to advertise his availability: "I need a job.Resume: Columnist & opinion pg editor, founded thriving free market think tank, exposed Al Gore's home electricity consumption."

What better way to end the week--assuming you're not Drew Johnson--than with a journalistic kerfuffle? In an unsigned statement his former employer, the Chattanooga Times Free Press, explains why he is no longer the Tennessee newspaper's editorial page editor:

Free Press editor Drew Johnson has been terminated after placing a headline on an editorial outside of normal editing procedures.

Johnson's headline, "Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough," appeared on the Free Press page Tuesday, the day President Barack Obama visited the city.

The headline was inappropriate for this newspaper. It was not the original headline approved for publication, and Johnson violated the normal editing process when he changed the headline. The newspaper's decision to terminate Johnson had nothing to do with the content of the editorial, which criticized the president's job creation ideas and Chattanooga's Smart Grid. The Free Press page has often printed editorials critical of the president and his policies.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press is unique in that it has two editorial pages, the conservative Free Press page and the liberal Times page. This newspaper places high value on expressions of divergent opinion, but will not permit violations of its standards.
The TFP doesn't report Johnson's side of the story, but plenty of other news outlets do, including the Chattanoogan (http://www.chattanoogan.com/2013/8/1/256161/Times-Free-Press-Fires-Editor-Drew-Johnson.aspx), a rival online-only newspaper, which quotes from his Twitter feed:

Soon after his dismissal, Mr. Johnson sent out this tweet, "I just became the first person in the history of newspapers to be fired for writing a paper's most-read article." . . .

He also wrote, "The policy I 'broke' did not exist when I 'broke' it. It was created after people complained about the headline & was applied retroactively. Any time the paper wanted to change the headline online (which is how most people read the editorial), they could've.

"We change headlines all the time at the last minute. I had a filler headline in that stunk and thought of that Johnny Paycheck song."

We used the editorial (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jul/30/take-your-jobs-plan-and-shove-it-mr-president-your/?opinionfreepress) in Tuesday's column (http://bit.ly/14gs6g3) for one of our inimitable headline gags, ironically playing off the parochialism and not the "shove it." Our gag headline, "Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off," still works with the sanitized TFP headline, "President Obama's Policies Have Harmed Chattanooga Enough."

So what are we to make of all this? TFP management says it fired Johnson for a violation of procedure, but it's abundantly clear that a disagreement over content is at the heart of this dispute. The TFP statement acknowledges deeming the Johnson headline "inappropriate."

That strikes us as a highly defensible position. To be sure, Johnson's play on "Take This Job and Shove It" was a clever pop-culture reference. When he wrote the headline, he was evidently focused on the cleverness, not on the rudeness of the exhortation to "shove it." Conservatives who think the firing unjust and politically biased might want to ask if they would have the same reaction if the scenario were reversed and a liberal editorialist were fired over a similar headline addressed to George W. Bush.

...

All that said, the TFP's claim that Johnson was fired for violating editorial procedures is incredible. He tells the Daily Caller (http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/01/fired-tennessee-newspaper-editor-termination-was-political-and-retroactive/) that the rule in question was imposed in reaction to the disputed editorial headline: "I was fired retroactively for violating a policy that was not in place when I violated the policy."

The "policy" does sound like a pretense--an effort by management to duck responsibility for what was in fact a decision based on editorial content (a decision, we should note, that is likely to offend a substantial minority of the paper's readers). And whether the policy was established before or after the fact, it is, quite simply, bizarre. What kind of newspaper gives a man the title "editorial page editor" while denying him the authority to write headlines for editorials?

Tyr-Ziu Saxnot

08-03-2013, 07:02 AM

One simply must not trash the messiah! And certainly not do so in an effective and clever way! Retribution is the call for the day for all that make that mistake. That is the message being sent .. Conservatives should organize a boycott of the Newspaper.. At some point we must organize and fight back. Our nation is being stolen right before our eyes and we are told to STFU BY OBAMA AND ALLIES!-Tyr

Larrymc

08-03-2013, 07:09 AM

Well we seen where the media finally trashed Obama and now a journalist from the paper is fired , and ya wonder why the media lets Obama do what ever he wants, myself I would have to say the hell with it , this country was founded on freedoms and I will be damned if some commie president will shut me up

Albert Camus said: “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.” One of the base principles upon which our country was founded was freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Freedom, in its most ideal form, sustains our society on multiple levels. Specifically, freedom of the press turns stone into glass, so that we can live in a more open and transparent society. The endangerment of any freedom is a step toward tyranny, but the endangerment of press freedom is the first step. And once one step is taken, the object in motion will continue to move forward.
Read more at http://lastresistance.com/2930/journalist-fired-for-anti-obama-column/#xF3q175ZcufEYIvG.99

Seems to me the only questions or was the Headline True, and if there was a Problem with it how did it make to print. But no question in my mind that Obama was behind the firing,

Tyr-Ziu Saxnot

08-03-2013, 07:58 AM

Seems to me the only questions or was the Headline True, and if there was a Problem with it how did it make to print. But no question in my mind that Obama was behind the firing, Either Obama himself complained or he had one of his underlings call to complain. The headline was exactly what I thought of Obama's so-called jobs plan. Best jobs plan this nation could ever have had was to run that bastard out of office. Too late for that now. We voted in 4 more years of destruction and misery. I hope every person that voted for the lying treasonous bastard the second time around (after witnessing the first 4 years) suffers unimaginable misery all the days of their ignorant lives. I know that not one of my family or friends voted for the scum.. I know of one person(a dem) that has lost his business because of Obama policies. I've been meaning to call him up and laugh at him and today would be a damn good day to do it. He was friend of my ex-father-in-law and a diehard dem. A truly disgusting SOB to boot. -Tyr

Jeff

08-03-2013, 08:00 AM

Seems to me the only questions or was the Headline True, and if there was a Problem with it how did it make to print. But no question in my mind that Obama was behind the firing,

OOO there was a problem OK it told the truth , something Obama and his administration dont like none to much

Larrymc

08-03-2013, 08:11 AM

Either Obama himself complained or he had one of his underlings call to complain. The headline was exactly what I thought of Obama's so-called jobs plan. Best jobs plan this nation could ever have had was to run that bastard out of office. Too late for that now. We voted in 4 more years of destruction and misery. I hope every person that voted for the lying treasonous bastard the second time around (after witnessing the first 4 years) suffers unimaginable misery all the days of their ignorant lives. I know that not one of my family or friends voted for the scum.. I know of one person(a dem) that has lost his business because of Obama policies. I've been meaning to call him up and laugh at him and today would be a damn good day to do it. He was friend of my ex-father-in-law and a diehard dem. A truly disgusting SOB to boot. -TyrI agree on his so called Jobs plan, but you can bet his hands never got close to this, Likely it was one or more of his Enforcers.

Larrymc

08-03-2013, 08:16 AM

OOO there was a problem OK it told the truth , something Obama and his administration dont like none to much:clap:You nailed it TRUTH, its like krypton

Tyr-Ziu Saxnot

08-03-2013, 08:23 AM

I agree on his so called Jobs plan, but you can bet his hands never got close to this, Likely it was one or more of his Enforcers. I've learned this and its true every time. Every time he has told us of his great plans to do something good for us its been damn lies and he eventually did nothing or else did just the opposite. Of course I knew that was the case even before he got elected the first time and often posted that at the other forum. -Tyr

Robert A Whit

08-03-2013, 01:52 PM

What the hell is that?

I mean the so called Obama jobs plan. Were this nonsense coming from the former Bush, it would rightly be called by the media, the so called jobs plan.

I can write any plan I want on paper. Does that mean it means much? Action counts. Words like the Obama job plan means nothing.

He talks all the time about plans. When does he intend they become action?

We saw some of his so called plans. Solyndra was a plan. How did that turn out Mr. Obama?

I am not sure this editor has any legal means to get his job back but support him should he try.

aboutime

08-03-2013, 02:08 PM

Anyone believe the journalist who published this story (below) will be fired too?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57596817/rangel-tea-party-same-white-crackers-who-opposed-civil-rights/

Larrymc

08-03-2013, 02:17 PM

Anyone believe the journalist who published this story (below) will be fired too?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57596817/rangel-tea-party-same-white-crackers-who-opposed-civil-rights/He may get a promotion, For putting to press this racist scums opinions.