Were you filmed?

THESE PDFs POSTED AS EDUCATION AND REFERENCE UNDER FAIR USE ACT.


Last year then Danville Register & Bee reporter Mac McLean took a video camera out on an interview and filmed a local Danville Businesswoman. On returning to the newsroom he edited the footage and called other reporters over to his computer to laugh at the fact the woman's nipples were showing. Not everyone in the newsroom found the footage funny or his actions "no big deal." He later repeated the filming - filming yet another business woman. That's two I'm aware of. How many others were there? We'll never know. Since no action was taken - other than sending Mac to Media General's Bristol paper, no one searched his computer or the server. If they did, nothing was ever said and no action taken.

Men and women in the newsroom were offended by the incident. I emailed both Bonne Mahler at Media General's Richmond office and Publisher Steve Kaylor about how offensive I found the incident. No one said or did anything - not the managing editor, Arnold Hendrix or other managers who gathered around to laugh. No one in charge said, "That's inappropriate." Other news staff objected, but nothing was done.

Let me repeat...Publisher Steve Kaylor was told about the incident - and did nothing. Human Resources was told about the incident and did nothing. No one was fired - even though Media General has a zero tolerance (at least the handbook says they do) for obscenity.

Sure, someone MIGHT have "talked to" him but then they turned right around and posted these two stories to the front page afterward and he was promoted - hired at another Media General newspaper!!!

Click to enlarge the photos. They're here under the fair use act. In the one story he describes an alcoholic drink as "Hopefully this drink has enough alcohol in it to be a good panty dropper. It's like Viagra for women dude....Viagra for women." The managing editor was told the remark was offensive and should be dropped but ran it anyway. Why? Then he followed up that story with a front page story and questionable photo about sex in Danville. The reporter, an intern, was sent around to talk to people about how often they had sex, where, when, how etc. and that was touted as "front page news" along with a photo that appeared to readers to be a man in bed with a child. See for yourself. What do you think? Offensive? Maybe not in San Francisco, but certainly among conservative Christians in Danville, Virginia!! And readers let us know. The phone rang for weeks and emails came even longer.

Now the newspaper will say they "took action," but no one was fired and incidents just keep on happening. Apparently the lawyers say, "Well, if you talk to people then we can say you took action." But the fact is - no action has truly been taken if the workplace continues to be hostile. If the hostility doesn't stop, then nothing was truly done was it?