Residents may voice their concerns for the extreme levels of racial division being used as a political tool to achieve unjust racial political ends by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.
COLUMBUS, Ga. — In an embarrassing Facebook post made on April 5, local news network WTVM made a past-tense social media post about a special meeting called by city council that had not yet occurred. The meeting was scheduled to take place the following day on April 6.
The article, published on April 5 at 4:55 p.m., also contained a falsely-constructed and heavily misleading narrative that incorrectly described the city’s legal procedure for removing a city officer from their appointed position.
Once the Muckraker pointed out WTVM’s suspicious faux pas in a series of two comments, the network deleted their Facebook post.
Later that evening, WTVM had pulled the article altogether; the article no longer appeared in searches on WTVM’s website at all. It appears to have been completely retracted.
However, the Muckraker had already screenshot the entirety of the article and its associated Facebook post before WTVM had the opportunity to delete the article. Since the article contained false information that the network itself redacted, we won’t be sharing it here to prevent its recirculation.
ANOTHER FALSE NARRATIVE
The article contained objectively-false information about the legal procedure for how city council may remove city officers — such as the chief of police — presented through a misleading and blatantly-intentional narrative that sought to undermine council’s proper discharge of the law.
In WTVM’s misleading article, the reporter discussed a separate and irrelevant power of city council that allows them to bring charges against city officers. The article then went on to falsely imply that since no charges were filed against Blackmon, proper procedure had somehow not been followed. That narrative from WTVM is factually incorrect.
In reality, the reporter did not bother to mention the actual section of the city charter that specifically pertains to the dismissal of city officers, which is found in a completely different part of the city charter in Sec. 4-335.
According to Section 4-335 of the Columbus City Charter, titled plainly enough as “Dismissal of City Officer,” there are three methods through which a city officer can be removed by either the mayor, city council, or a combination of both.
None of the actual methods for removing a city officer involve the filing of charges, as was falsely claimed by WTVM.
If that reporter is going to cite the city charter, perhaps they ought to read the whole thing first.
SEC. 4-335: DISMISSAL OF CITY OFFICER
Here are the actual methods through which the mayor and/or city council may lawfully remove a city officer, in accordance with Sec. 4-335:
Any City Officer named in this chapter may be dismissed as follows:
- The Mayor may recommend the removal and dismissal of any City Officer. The affected City Officer shall be served with written notice of his or her removal and given an opportunity to be heard by the Columbus Council. Such removal and dismissal shall be effective when confirmed by the affirmative vote of six (6) members of the Council.
- The Mayor may remove, dismiss and discharge any City Officer. Such dismissal shall be effective immediately subject to the affected City Officer's right to appeal such action by the Mayor as provided in Section 4-336 of this subchapter.
- The Council, without a recommendation of the Mayor, may remove, dismiss and discharge any City Officer with the affirmative vote of seven (7) members of Columbus Council voting in favor of such removal, dismissal or discharge.
THE RESULT
WTVM’s article fixated on an entirely unrelated power of council to file charges against city officers. WTVM then used that unrelated citation as a false premise. WTVM then went on to mislead the public by wrongfully implying that since no charges have been filed against Blackmon, proper procedure had somehow not been followed by city council.
That published argument from WTVM is factually incorrect, as can be plainly referenced in Section 4-335 of the city charter.
By describing an unrelated and additional power of city council without even bothering to mention the section that pertains to how city officers are removed, WTVM misled their readers to believe that proper legal procedure had somehow not been followed.
Newsflash: Proper procedure has absolutely been followed — to a tee — even to the point of being extremely polite about it for months.
A REPEAT OFFENDER
This isn’t the first time this particular reporter from WTVM has been caught fabricating a misleading narrative, either. It is thematic.
The article described above was written by the same reporter who was caught constructing a false narrative about the political protest held by Omega Psi Phi just last week.
In that article, the reporter falsely claimed the political protest held on March 28 was applied for by a private individual — the subject of the reporter’s interview — while displaying a heavily-redacted protest application form as ‘proof.’
The reporter had conveniently blacked-out the text on the form, hiding the name of the organization that had actually applied to host the protest: Omega Psi Phi.
Given the context of the situation, that was some very key information to selectively omit.
The reporter somehow did not consider that we at the Muckraker had already been in possession of the fully-unredacted form for nearly a week.
ADDITIONAL IMPLICATIONS
The organization that did in fact hold the protest has unethically-close ties to city manager Isaiah Hugley, raising questions about both Hugley’s social and monetary connections to the organization of a political protest against the city. Hugley’s deep ties to the organization also raise questions about his possible connection to WTVM’s fabricated news narrative which appears to have knowingly lied to help cover it up.
As WTVM continues to permit reporters to publish objectively-false and misleading information surrounding the story of police chief Freddie Blackmon — such as the retracted article falsely describing the legal procedure for removing city officers — the pile of evidence suggesting the network’s purposeful censorship and willful control of public opinion continues to grow.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Perhaps the vice president and general manager at WTVM should take better care in monitoring the diligence, ethics, and output of their reporters before they continue to publish objectively-false information in a manner that presents as an intentionally-misleading narrative designed to censor information and control public opinion for political gain.
It’s really not a good look, and people notice. Oh boy, do they notice.
Residents may voice their concerns for the extreme levels of racial division being used as a political tool to achieve unjust racial political ends by emailing Mayor Skip Henderson directly at SkipHenderson@columbusga.org, while cc’ing their respective city council members on the email.
Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials and WTVM like them or not.
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