Patty Maese Part 2

Former KTSM reporter Patty Maese separated from her employer immediately following a couple of recent developments including comments made about educators and directed at a UTEP professor - and her attendance at an Open Texas protest.

Now, as I expected manny on the right in El Paso are trying to make her some sort of martyr for the conservative cause. But it is unclear as to what exactly transpired to lead to her separation from KTSM - which is important precisely because the effort to make her a martyr.

Because there are two narratives - one that says she was fired and one that says she quit. Now publicly she said quit. Her statements following her departure indicated that she left KTSM and it was her decision to leave. Almost like she was doing so out of protest.

The other narrative from industry folks is that she was given the opportunity to apologize and she refused, at which point she was let go.

Which is true? Well the naked truth is we will probably never know - we will only hear each side’s version of what happened.

But here’s what we do know. Following her departure from KTSM - Maese decided to publish the criminal record of her boss at KTSM. When you strip all the other stuff away, the reality is that if you left on your own terms out of some deep devotion to principle - you wouldn’t be trashing your old boss. Maybe you’d trash the station or the parent company...but when you go after a particular employee, well that is a dead giveaway that its personal.

Its always dangerous when you start trying to blow up the bridge behind you by trashing people like that because the truth is, everyone has what we refer to as “dirt” or “skeletons in the closet”. When you engage in that behavior, especially when its just meant to tarnish someone else’s reputation, its very destructive. ITs one of those things that a person would cry foul about if it happened to them.

Bottom line is that if you left on your own terms and weren’t fired, you don’t trash your boss. You only trash your boss when they fire you.