NAHJ Honoree Gets News After 5 Months in Limbo
“Rebecca Aguilar’s 14-year career as a Fox4 reporter has officially ended via a letter from an attorney representing the station,” Ed Bark, who covers Dallas television, wrote Wednesday night on his “Uncle Barky’s Bytes” blog.
“In a telephone interview Wednesday night, Aguilar, 49, said she was checking her mail at mid-afternoon that day when she noticed an envelope under her front door mat. It informed her that Fox4 was exercising an option to drop her at the halfway point of a two-year contract that began on March 6, 2007.
“‘No doorbell, no knock on the door,’ said Aguilar, who had been on paid suspension since Oct. 16th following her controversial interview with an elderly West Dallas salvage business owner who had shot and killed two alleged burglars within three weeks time.
“The interview had been hotly debated in both Dallas and around the country. Some accused Aguilar of ‘ambushing’ a feeble old man; others said she had been aggressive, but not unduly so, in getting a story that rival stations also wanted on their newscasts.
“The suspension came less than two weeks after Aguilar had accepted the Broadcast Journalist of the Year award from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Three other Fox4 staffers connected with the story belatedly received suspensions lasting less than a week combined.”
NAHJ had risen to Aguilar’s defense, and later Unity: Journalists of Color; the Dallas LULAC Council, which is part of the League of United Latin American Citizens; the alternative newspaper Fort Worth Weekly; Bark; and the Dallas-Fort Worth Association of Black Communicators backed Aguilar as well.
The station never said exactly why Aguilar was suspended.
Rafael Olmeda, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, told Journal-isms on Thursday, “The more I look at that report, the more justification I see for Rebecca Aguilar’s conduct. I’ve looked at the thing over and over again.” While some have criticized Aguilar for “ambushing” the gun owner, Olmeda said it was clear that he had two opportunities to leave and did not.
“What I do think is wrong is there was no opportunity for dialogue” between those who were outraged and the station, between the outraged viewers and Aguilar, or between the outraged and himself, Olmeda said. “What immediately happened was a call for her firing,” followed by her suspension.
“NAHJ was standing up for her not because she was Hispanic, but because she was mistreated and she was one of our members,” he said.
View the original story (Swanky Conservative)
Video of the original report (Breitbart TV analysis)
