Baltimore Reporter Crosses the Line with Letter to Politicians

It appears that WBAL Reporter Kate Amara tried to use her position to get local leaders to stop a potential redistricting school plan.

In a letter to the Howard County Council members she refers to herself as the “lead political reporter at WBAL-TV.”

Looking at her Twitter and Facebook, she calls herself an Anchor/Reporter at the station. Her station bio has her listed as Reporter.

It appears that since she is writing this letter to politicians, using the title “lead political reporter” might carry some more weight.

While she includes her “title” and station in the lead line of the letter and also includes the station’s call letters in the signature of the letter, along with the WBAL newsroom phone number, Amara says she is reaching out to the Council as a “resident.”

But, she made enough references to WBAL and her job, you know just in case the Council members were not paying attention.

The Baltimore Sun wrote about the redistricting plans in a story titled, “‘Desegregate’ Howard schools by balancing student enrollment, council members say”.

They reported that if the Howard County Public School System can balance student capacity in all schools as well as balance out students who participate in the free and reduced-price meals program, “we would improve education outcome,” according to Council Chairwoman Christiana Mercer Rigby.

“We have an opportunity now to balance capacity, and to better balance our FARMs capacity in all our schools and keep kids going to school close to their neighborhoods or closer to their neighborhoods,” Rigby said in an interview.

Social Activist Kwame Rose believes that Amara is doing her best to keep the black kids out of her kid’s schools.

He took to Twitter to give his thoughts on Amara’s letter to the Council.

Others on Twitter also question how Amara used her position to try and carry more weight:

Certainly, as a parent and a resident, Amara has every right to give her thoughts to local leaders on the desegregation. But, it sure appears that she was using her title of Reporter at WBAL to try and carry more clout.

This is wrong!

Let’s hope that WBAL management and its owner Hearst explains to Amara that you shouldn’t be using the station or your job title to try and sway leaders into your way of thinking.

Here is the letter that Amara sent to the council: