It’s no surprise that behind the sunny scenes and shining smiles of the morning news, there’s often some heated drama going on. Maybe some newsrooms are happy and carefree when the cameras aren’t on, but considering that careers are made in a very public way there, often dealing with serious issues, it’s hard to imagine them all being friendly little families.
But, going by news anchor Brittany Noble Jone’s account, the way she was treated by her station was just appalling, and not a great look for any employer that wants to retain talent.
For the better part of three years, viewers in the Jackson, Mississippi area woke up with Jones’s smiling face, reading the morning news.
And then one day in 2018, she was just gone. She took a sick leave and never came back.
Despite the fact that she was an award-winning journalist, her station, WJTV 12, had fired her. However, as she tells it, the situation had been brewing for quite some time, and it wasn’t for the typical reasons you might expect.
Things started to go downhill for Brittany soon after she became pregnant with her son.
As she explained in a lengthy post on Medium , “After announcing that I was pregnant, I was no longer asked to participate in commercials. I felt the need to starve myself to fit in.”
What’s more, she had filed a corporate complaint, which was followed by a two-month investigation, just to be allowed to use a storage closet to pump breast milk.
Which is absolutely insane .
Brittany feels that her mistreatment severely impacted her pregnancy. Trying to arrange the times to pump caused stress with her superiors, even before she gave birth.
“I was 34 weeks pregnant when my boss told me in a private conversation that I wasn’t a mother yet. The next week I went into labor during the show, likely because of stress. My son was born 5 weeks premature.”
Her son’s lungs hadn’t finished forming yet, so he was rushed to the NICU.
Naturally, she had to take some time off to care for her son. Caring for him turned her life upside down, but when she was ready to go back to work, she wanted to make a change with her hair.
Straightening her hair every day was too time consuming, and she wanted to be a good role model for her son.
“While I was pregnant I kept wondering, ‘How am I going to teach my child to love their own hair if I don’t even love my hair?” she told BuzzFeed News .
Brittany says that, at first, her boss backed her plan.
But that support didn’t stick for very long. “A month after giving me the green light I was pulled back into his office,” she wrote. “I was told ‘My natural hair is unprofessional and the equivalent to him throwing on a baseball cap to go to the grocery store.’
“He said ‘Mississippi viewers needed to see a beauty queen.’ He even asked, ‘why my hair doesn’t lay flat.'”
A woman rocking her natural hair texture and a man “throwing baseball cap” are two very different things.
When multiple HR complaints couldn’t help her resolve her issues with her superiors, Brittany turned to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
And shortly after filing that complaint, Brittany had to take a sick leave to look after her dying grandfather. While she was away, the station fired her.
The station and its parent company dispute Brittany’s reasoning for her termination.
In a statement, the station said she was fired for her absences. “WJTV-TV and Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc., maintain a strict zero-tolerance policy which prohibits harassment, discrimination or retaliation of any type,” the statement read.
“Allegations that Ms. Jones’ employment was terminated for her choice of hairstyles have no basis in fact and are vigorously denied.”
They continued, “Ms. Jones’ employment was in fact terminated for excessive absenteeism and for her failure to return to work and fulfill her contractual responsibilities after exhausting all available leave time.”
Since her firing, Brittany has been unable to find work in journalism.
But she’s hoping that her story will shine a light on the difficulties with bringing stories of people of color to air on news stations in America.
“I hope my story resonates with someone. America needs to take care of our journalists, especially journalists of color,” she wrote. “We are crucial to democracy.”
I hope Brittany is able to find work doing what she loves and excels at, no matter what hairstyle she chooses.
