TEGNA initiates internal review of KGW reporting on former Trail Blazers announcer
TEGNA, owner of KGW-TV, has started an internal investigation into the newsroom's handling of a story that led to the dismissal of Braiden Bell as the Portland Trail Blazers' play-by-play announcer.
Portland Trail Blazers announced on Thursday that they would not proceed with Braiden Bell as the team's play-by-play broadcaster after the discovery of several offensive social-media posts he made as a teenager. The franchise said the posts violated its policies and values, emphasizing a zero-tolerance stance on racist or sexist content.
KGW reporter Devon Haskins uncovered the tweets from 2012 and 2013 and reported that the team had terminated Bell shortly after the findings were shared. The station noted that no offensive material was found from Bell after he reached adulthood.
The rapid sequence of events prompted public debate over whether the posts, made when Bell was 14, should have resulted in immediate termination and whether the reporting process was appropriate. Critics also examined Haskins' own social-media history, leading him and KGW assistant news director John Tierney to remove contact information from their profiles.
According to media analyst Matthew Keys, TEGNA has launched an internal review to determine if KGW-TV and its journalists followed company editorial guidelines in researching and reporting the story about Bell's past social-media activity.
"The investigation focuses on whether KGW-TV (Channel 8, NBC) and its two journalists, news director John Tierney and sports reporter Devon Haskins, follow the company’s editorial processes with respect to researching and reporting a story involving social media posts made by former WNBA sports broadcaster Braiden Bell," Keys wrote.
The case raises broader questions about the role of journalists in uncovering historical online content, the responsibility of organizations to act on such information, and the potential impact of reporting on individuals' careers.