It’s no secret WTTG reporter Emily Miller is a big fan of the Second Amendment.
The Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple questions Miller’s ethics after the Washington, D.C. FOX O&O investigative reporter spoke at a rally organized by gun rights group Maryland Shall Issue.
Last month, Miller made news by telling another gun rights group that Washington, D.C. wasn’t in the US, because of its gun laws.
When approached by the Erik Wemple Blog with questions about whether her employer approved her activities on behalf of gun-rights organizations, she responded, “Yes.” When we attempted to ask follow-up questions, she referred us to her publicist. “That’s our policy,” said Miller.
But all this attention can’t come as a surprise to current employer WTTG and parent company FOX Television Stations. By the time she was hired, in April last year, she had already written her book, publicly stating her views on gun control laws, titled, “Emily Gets Her Gun … But Obama Wants to Take Yours.” Plus, she came from The Washington Times where she was the senior editor of its Opinion Pages.
On its “about us” page, the Times says it is “America’s leading online destination for hard-hitting news and conservative commentary from the nation’s capital.”
Erica Keane, senior vice president of corporate communications for Fox Television Stations (a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox), tells the Erik Wemple Blog that the group of stations doesn’t release editorial standards — so it’s hard to gauge just how Miller’s advocacy work squares with the company rules. In any case, Miller doesn’t get paid for her appearances, says Keane. “Each speaking engagement is approved on a case-by-case basis,” she says.
And Wemple concedes, she never comes right out an endorses anything but the Second Amendment.