Houston news anchor Scarlett Fakhar has been fired for a controversial Facebook post praising Donald Trump’s election and blaming President Obama for racism.
via NY Daily News:
The 25-year-old was accused of bias after posting that she “could barely sleep from how happy and relieved” she was over Trump’s victory, and blaming Obama for making the country “more violent and racist.”
“Look what Obama has done … how he made the entire country hate one another. Were you happy with how many people were killing each other in our own country? I work in news … and I hate to say it … but the number of African Americans killing one another far outweighs the number of them being killed by whites,” she said.
Fakhar also blasted college students as lazy and entitled for wanting free education, adding she opposes higher taxes on the rich and claiming that immigrants must “do it the right way” like her Iranian father.
The anchor issued a mea culpa after her politically charged post went public, saying on Facebook that she had breached her responsibility to be objective.
“I need to profusely apologize for making public my personal views on the outcome of the election and other issues. It was wholly inappropriate, as a journalist, to do that. Again, my sincere apologies,” she said.
The post, and her original post-election diatribe, have both been deleted.
Fakhar was less apologetic in parting ways with the station where she had worked since September 2015.
“FOX 26 Houston is trying to take my fan page down now! DON’T LET THEM! #FREEPRESS #FREESPEECH#FIRSTAMENDMENT,” she said on Thursday.
Fakhar also criticized reports focusing on her discussion of black-on-black crime, saying that she is multiracial and not a racist.
The journalist’s last story for KRIV was a piece about an 11-year-old boy beaten after voting for Trump in a mock election.
Check out her now-deleted post below. Let this be another lesson — whatever you say online can have real-life consequences.
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