Journalists have higher standards when reporting on sport stars.
Via Daily Mail:
A Pittsburgh TV station has fired an employee who captioned a clip of star quarterback Tom Brady as ‘Known Cheater’ in reference to his Deflategate scandal.
On Monday, CBS affiliate KDKA aired video of the New England Patriots star with the cheater caption in a segment about Brady heading into the 2019 Super Bowl against the Los Angeles Rams.
‘We’re still here. We’re not quiet at the end yet, we got one more to go,’ Brady said in the news segment where the words ‘Known Cheater’ appeared under his name instead of the typical descriptor ‘Patriots Quarterback’.
The words were displayed for just two seconds and the cheeky caption left plenty of viewers laughing, but it cost the prankster his job.
Executives at KDKA announced Wednesday they fired the employee behind the joke graphic.
‘While fans are entitled to have personal opinions, we have a journalistic responsibility to provide unbiased reporting,’ KDKA said in a statement to SI.com.
‘The graphic that appeared Monday violated our news standards. The individual who created the graphic no longer works for KDKA-TV,’ the statement added.
The employee has not been identified.