A television meteorologist who took to social media to defend a comment on her hairstyle ended up trying to defend herself from termination for violation of the station’s social media policy. Or was it just “guidance”?
According to media reports, the weatherperson for KTBX in Shreveport, Louisiana, who is a black woman, responded, albeit in a courteous manner, to a Facebook post from a viewer who did not like her very short haircut and asked her if she was battling cancer.
Her response, according to shine.yahoo.com, stated, “I am very proud of my African-American ancestry which includes my hair,” and went on to describe why some black women choose to wear their hair short.
While the station supported the content of her response, it gave the forecaster a pink slip, stating that it was company policy not to respond on social media to negative posts and that the forecaster had violated this policy several times and had received multiple warnings.
The weatherperson told the media that she had an e-mail where station management referred to the social media response prohibition as “guidance” and did not cite any written policy.
The Shreveport station stated that the firing had nothing to do with the appearance issue but was based on violation of company policies. Ragan.com reported that since Louisiana is a right-to-work state and using social media is not a protected activity, the station was in its rights to terminate the employee.
Of course, PR-wise, the termination may have not been the best option, since support from the employee’s Facebook friends has been large and vocal in asking for her to get her job back. We will keep you posted on what happens next.