Baltimore anchorwoman axed after racially incendiary question about Black women mayors
An on-air question that came out sounding like it attached Baltimore's problems specifically to Black women mayors led to the sacking of a popular broadcast journalist
An anchorwoman for Baltimore’s WJZ-TV has been fired after asking if “a different kind of leadership” is needed after three Black women — including two that resigned– served as the city’s mayor, the Baltimore Sun is reporting. The controversy comes as fallout continues in the wake of former mayor Catherine Pugh’s resignation.
Pugh resigned Thursday after questions as to whether she used sales of her self-published children’s book to cover up potential kickbacks from the University of Maryland Medical System and Kaiser Permanente Health System
The blow up started on Thursday, when 25-year veteran WJZ anchorwoman Mary Bubala interviewed Loyola University Maryland professor Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead about Pugh and the leadership in Baltimore.
“We’ve had three female African American mayors in a row,” Bubala said on the air. “They were all passionate public servants. Two resigned, though. Is this a signal that a different kind of leadership is needed to move Baltimore City forward?”
Wise’s response to the question was cut from the clip that surfaced, but she responded in a Facebook Live post on Monday saying, “it is very, very clear to me that we are still having an issue with talking about, with sharing the issues around race and we need to get to a point…where race and gender are not determining factors in how we see ourselves or how we judge our leaders, or how we allow people to have access to positions of power.”
Prior to Pugh, former mayor Shiela Dixon had also resigned in 2010 after being convicted of misappropriating $500 in gift cards intended for the poor. She was replaced in the interim by Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who then won a full term in 2011, but fell under criticism when social unrest rose in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray in 2015. She decided against running again in 2016.
After outrage was expressed on social media over Bubala’s question, The Sun wrote about the situation and received an email on Monday from general manager Audra Swain indicating Bubala was out at the station.
“Mary Bubala is no longer a WJZ-TV employee,” Swain wrote in the email to the Sun. “The station apologizes to its viewers for her remarks.”
Meanwhile, members of a local organization of Black journalists, which called Bubala’s question “racist and sexist,” are pointing out that the action only took place after a backlash on social media, and also asserting that the action does not solve the city’s root problem with diversity within its news organizations.
Nicki Mayo, immediate past president of the Baltimore Association of Black Journalists, published a clip of the interview on Twitter and received a backlash from viewers who said Bubala is “good people.” But she believes Bubala leaving the station does little to address the bigger problem.
Her organization is trying to fight for newsroom diversity and inclusion, she said. A more productive response would have been to compel Bubala to apologize right away and then moved forward to figure out how to fix the larger issues, Mayo told theGrio exclusively.
“It doesn’t make any sense that she was on TV the next day,” Mayo said. “You had Black employees inside of that station who are voicing concern immediately … why did it take days?”
As for Bubala, the anchorwoman emailed an apology to The Sun.
“Last week, I made a mistake in the language I used on air,” she said. “I received immediate support from WJZ because they knew it was not in my heart to intentionally cause this kind of harm. I wanted to do an on-air apology but was not allowed. I hope that the people of Baltimore know that I would never do anything to hurt anyone.”
She added, “Unfortunately, I now stand in the path of the tornado. WJZ was forced to let me go.”
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