Barras Fired By WAMU
Jonetta Rose Barras, the fiery veteran D.C. political analyst, has been fired by her bosses at WAMU-FM, where she served as co-host of the Friday noon show The Politics Hour With Kojo and Jonetta. Her departure is effective immediately, and the station has changed the name of the show to The Politics Hour.
Barras says that her dismissal was prompted by her persistent appeals for better pay, not to mention a rocky relationship with WAMU Program Director Mark McDonald. "My problems were with the program manager, who had no appreciation for the amount of work I did, the quality of that work, and my reputation, and believed that I should be paid less than a senior career person," says Barras.
The sharp-tongued Barras has never been afraid to confront power--she did it every week on the airwaves--and she apparently didn't keep quiet about what she saw as workplace injustices. She says she watched as WAMU staffers who did less work got paid more than she did. Behind the alleged disparities, she says, lie racial and gender discrimination on part of the WAMU leadership.
"I do believe that there was some discrimination involved in the way that I was handled by the program [director] and the senior management," she says. Barras says she had no problem whatsoever with co-host Kojo Nnamdi and staffers who put together their show.
Barras' dispute with WAMU follows a classic '00s model. Over time, says Barras, her managers at WAMU expanded her responsibilities. Whereas the show was once titled The D.C. Politics Hour With Kojo and Jonetta, the station subsequently expanded its scope to include Maryland and Virginia, rechristening it as The Politics Hour With Kojo and Jonetta. Though Barras thus gained two big jurisdictions to cover, her compensation didn't experience a comparable gain. "They changed the name of the show and scope of the show and then were pissed off because I was asking for more money," says Barras, who has also worked extensively for Washington City Paper over the years.
McDonald declined to comment, citing the manager's personnel comment exemption. A statement released by the station is light on details, saying only that Barras "is leaving" WAMU.
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11:13 am
Oh I'm sure someone will come along and give that shrill harpie another microphone to speak into....
11:31 am
Can't say I'm sad to see her go. Most of her questions were long-winded diatribes that were simply rants with a question mark at the end.
11:41 am
The production staff on that show does the bulk, if not all, of the prep work on that show. They essentially pick the topics, do the research, pre-interview and book the guests, and then hand all of it over in a nice little packet for the "talent." Jonetta brought her reputation, for sure, including her rep as a prima donna, but her argument about how hard she works on the show and all of her expanded responsibilities is utter BS. The show is one-hour, one day a week. The producers who do all of the work and get none of the credit also produce two-hour shows for every other day of the week.
I applaud Mark McDonald, who I know to be a good guy, for not giving in to her demands, and I applaud the producers of the show for the hard work they have always done, including putting up with her.
12:09 pm
I think the show started sucking when they started devoting serious time to the issues of Maryland and VA. I'm sure this move has to do with listenership demographics. But why can't there be a single hour devoted to the nitty gritty of D.C. politics? I guess I just miss the old format.
12:17 pm
No need to applaud anyone for giving someone more responsibility without more pay. Regardless of who does the prep work, the talent still has to do research and stay atop of the many issues confronting the metropolitan area.
I gave the expanded show a try, but quite frankly, never cared to hear anything about the Commonwealth that still bills itself as the capital of the south (VA).
The producers of the show are doing their jobs, which all good behind the scenes staff do. Don't make them out to be any greater than any other production staff anywhere.
The sad story here is that Jonetta implies that Mark McDonald and the suits at WAMU are either racially insensitive, gender-challenged or both.
You can throw out Kojo and Diane Rehm as examples of how great they treat minorty talent, but they're the go-to guys, so they'll always be treated well.
Progressive, forward-thinking enterprises are judged on how they treat regular folk and those like Jonetta who may not have true star quality and are otherwise disposable.
Clearly, Mark McDonald and WAMU leave much to be desired in their treatment of mid-line African-American and female talent.
Maybe their recent spate of ratings have already gone to their heads.
Sad indeed.
12:22 pm
Nameless production staffers make the media world go 'round.
1:47 pm
My big problem with Jonetta is that she just doesn't stack up. The reason she's not a 'go-to-guy' like Kojo is because she isn't as talented. Kojo is a far more talented interviewer, and, despite his more soft-spoken nature, has the ability to get to the heart of contentious issues, while Jonetta always seems to be spinning her wheels and trying to get a word in. Putting her with Kojo is kind of an insult to Kojo.
In other words, Jonetta is an overrated crybaby... just like Lebron James...
3:11 pm
Jonetta was never supposed do be the "go-to-guy". But Kojo's softer edge is precisely why he needed (and will still need) a Jonetta.
The show was great with Plotkin because he was an agitator. Jonetta, too, is an agitator. I rarely agreed with her, but I respected the fact that she had no problem confronting DC's high-brow politicos and taking them to task.
She didn't accept non-answers and like any good journalist, she was creative in re-stating her questions.
At this point, this is less about Jonetta and much more about Mike McDonald and WAMU's alleged/implied racist tactics.
Clearly his friends and/or associates on this board will never address Jonetta's claims (doesn't serve their purpose), but she's essentially called him and the station out ... and like Hilary's pals - who are fine with her latest pleas of desperation, "but who's going to fight for the white people with no money?" - Mark's buddies could care less.
Afterall, Jonetta is just another black person who's out of work and Lord knows there's more than enough of them.
Way to go WAMU.
And on Lebron - as David Dupree finally ackownledged on Tony K's gabfest this morning - Lebron may evolve as the best ever.
Though the annual beating of the hapless Bullets should hardly count for anything.
Remember ... Fight, fight, slam, slam - that's the reason you're a Bullets fan.
5:01 pm
I'll miss Jonetta. I enjoyed her acid tongue; her ability to question the guests on their often "memory lapses" also known as lies; her ability to learn about and expand on neighborhood issues; and her humor. I always thought of her as a major asset to the program. As an aside, as a DC resident, I don't think much of the Virginia and Maryland segments.
10:52 am
The show needs fresh context. Jonetta has been out scooped by everyone from Segraves to Nakamura. She's even tried to play both sides of the fence w Fenty to no avail who's thrown her less scraps of spin than what a dog will find in a Cleveland Park alley. If she thinks she can manage the show better she should get into radio management.
12:24 pm
Hope you're not Derrick Ward-One.
She didn't want to manage the show.
The bottom line is that they expanded her show without expanding her check.
It took a great deal to run around DC on it's own. You throw the vast wasteland known as VA and the crab clutchers in Annapolis, and you have more work.
More work and not more pay with a successfully positioned public enterprise simply doesn't add up.
I'd start a Free Jonetta!! campaign, but with her dismissal, she's already a little more free than she deserves.
3:13 pm
It's not like she was a talking head on Fox News. She was on public radio. I'm sure if WAMU could give her that money without having to cut somewhere else they would, but, judging by the reactions I've been reading, her presence didn't exactly broaden their base of listeners. It's a crappy time to be a journalist. There are journalists out there who are far more talented than Jonetta who are less exposed most likely less well-compensated.
4:03 am
WAMU has had serious issues since Susan Clampitt managed that station a few years back. When A.U. finally fired her after staff morale hit an all-time low, they only placed a bandaid on the problem. A.U. left a remnant of Susan Clampitt's administration (including Mark MacDonald) to wreak havoc on the staff that had complained. So, MM, gets a go-for-broke passcard from the university as he and the new directors there retaliate against the staff members that really cared about what they were doing. Karma is a bitch. Jut ask Earl.
Oh, and thank the infamous former A.U. president Ben Ladner for 'gifting' the new WAMU hierarchy with a 'whip-carrying' new leader to help mix it all up.
8:29 am
Jonetta will not be missed. Her so-called tough questioning of politicians, government officials, and others was nothing more than diatribes and rants passing as queries.
1:12 pm
Jonetta added nothing to the show except a rambling, vauge sense of irony. Jonetta is circumloquacious activist at best, not a journalist in the least.
12:29 pm
I don't know all the details of the firing but I've enjoy the show immensely since moving here two years agao - I'd podcast every week and keep up on D.C. and regional issues. I loved the combination of Kojo and Jonetta and hope the station can now find another co-host to complement Kojo.
9:39 am
Barras made the show too much about Barras, when she should have been helping to put the story in the foreground.
As far as the pay issue goes, I get that she had more responsibilities; however, wasn't the model for that show not to pay for original reporting, but rather to draw on expertise from reporters already working on those stories? If so, Barras worked for the DC-only politics hour, but the expanded coverage changed that. It sounds to me like Barras and WAMU had different conceptions of what her position should entail.