By John Smyntek
Detroit Free Press
Published: 4/1/06
Excerpt:
Frank Turner's contract to anchor the news at WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) expires at year's
end, the station says. And the likelihood that he'll continue much
beyond that has now been clouded by an Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission filing against the station for enforcing its exclusive
contract for his broadcast services.Turner, who embraced
evangelical Christianity after well-publicized cocaine and phone-sex
scandals in the late 1990s, wants to launch a two-hour weekday show on
Christian broadcaster WEXL-AM (1340).
WXYZ chief Grace Gilchrist said the station has consistently turned down other employees who
sought to pursue other opportunities that might challenge their news
jobs' objectivity.
Al Tompkins, who teaches broadcast ethics at Florida's Poynter Institute, said, "It's not unusual for a TV station to require their on-air
personalities to get permission for outside employment. ... They have a
tremendous interest in their on-air people's reputation. Clearly, if
one of those air people was going to do an evangelistic radio show, it
would be almost inevitable there would be discussions that could easily
be at cross-purposes with news anchors not taking public positions on
issues."
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