A young anchorwoman at a Fox News affiliate in Texas says she was fired after expressing support for President-elect Donald Trump on her private Facebook page.
Scarlett Fakhar worked as a reporter and noon anchor for KRIV-TV, the Fox 26 affiliate in Houston, until recently, World News Daily reports.
Fakhar told WND that she sometimes saw her co-workers express their liberal opinions on the air and on their social media pages. Fakhar said she was targeted because of her conservative beliefs, which she was careful to voice only in private.
“I was fired for my political beliefs,” Fakhar said. “Reporters at my station are allowed to espouse their liberal views on-air and on their public work pages, but I’m not allowed to write my conservative views on my personal page for friends. There is without a doubt a double standard.”
The situation began the day after the election when Fakhar posted a message on her private Facebook page about the election results. In the note – one that she thought only family and friends could see, she said she was “happy and relieved” on the morning after Trump won.
Somehow, a liberal blogger saw her post, captured a screen shot of it and made a fuss about it online. When it spiraled into a national news story, Fakhar said her bosses called her into their office. She said they wrote an apology for her and told her to put it on her Facebook page. She did, but quickly regretted it and took it down.
Fakhar said she let her bosses know what she had done, and initially they did not seem to have a problem with it. However, a week later, she said she was fired from her job, allegedly for breaching the station’s social media policy.
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She told WND:
“I think that if I had been on the other end of the spectrum, saying something like, ‘Oh I woke up this morning feeling sick, I couldn’t get out of bed,’ like some of the others did, then I would not be in this position.”
She reflected: “No one would have felt the need to screenshot my opinion and send it to the Houston Chronicle. I can’t believe this all started with something posted on my personal Facebook page.
“I’ve been a reporter for four years, and I’ve never had any problems with any boss. You won’t see one discrepancy in any of my jobs, ever. And especially when it comes to unbiased reporting,” she exclaimed firmly but with a wisp of exasperation.
Later, she added:
Did Fakhar believe she had to keep her political opinions to herself to survive professionally?
“Yes. For the four years that I have done this, absolutely.”
Then why would she make the Facebook post if she felt it would endanger her job?
“Because I just felt so strongly about it, and I think that I’ve hit a turning point. This country is just more divided than it has ever been, and I think that more people need to be speaking the truth, giving the facts as they are, and that’s exactly what I did.”
Media bias always has been a concern among pro-lifers. It’s one of the reasons why LifeNews exists. The recent presidential election, however, brought the liberal bias in the mainstream media to the forefront.
Trump, who admittedly made some bad remarks about women and abortion in the past, was repeatedly chastised by the mainstream media for supporting more protections for unborn babies, while Hillary Clinton, who supported unlimited abortions on unborn babies up until birth, taxpayer-funded abortions, gruesome partial-birth abortions and more, was barely questioned about her policies and unborn babies’ rights.
