A reporter in a Maine newspaper newsroom was fired for sending a nasty email to a pro gay marriage group and is claiming his termination was the result of political correctness and had political undertones. As someone who has worked in a newsroom for most of my adult life, I'll simply say this: Hogwash. What he did was idiotic and unprofessional. It was a major lapse in judgment. Could the newspaper have given him a spank on the back of the hand instead of firing him? Probably. Was the firing justified? From everything I know about the inner workings of newspapers, it is completely in line with similar responses to acts by other journalists that had nothing to do with someone being conservative or liberal. In this particular case, he would have a bit more leeway if he was an opinion writer of some sort, because opinion writers express strong opinions all the time, so doing so in an email is not unusual. But even then, the way he handled it was unnecessary. He didn't even have to interact with that group in that particular situation, from what I gathered. There are times when people are unjustly chastised for expressing unpopular views, whether they be liberal, conservative or of another sort. This doesn't seem like one of them.
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