Cheerleader Sex Scandal Meeting Drags On

Ware Shoals, SC (TLS). Jane Blackwell, principal of Ware Shoals High School and a central figure in the investigation of the cheerleader sex scandal involving coach Jill Moore, is still meeting behind closed doors at this hour with the school board.

Blackwell had requested the meeting after the Board offered her a chance to tell her side of the story after having been charged with obstruction in the police investigation of former cheerleader coach Jill Moore. The meeting today is key in Blackwell's attempt to keep her job as principal of Ware Shoals High School.

Initially the meeting was open to the public. However, school board officials, and their attorney, had informed the local news media that the meeting would go behind closed doors if news cameras were turned on for Blackwell's testimony.

Local CBS News affiliate WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, SC, chose to ignore the directive of the Board, stating that they had a clear legal right to roll the cameras during a public meeting. At this point, the Board chair and attorney promptly ended the public meeting and took it behind closed doors, at the request of Blackwell.

WSPA-TV rolled out its apologists from legal authorities, law professors, and the like, in order to bolster its contention that it had a legal right to put on camera all of the testimony in a meeting that is 'public.' The law states that in public meetings cameras are allowed.

However, it would seem to us that this is yet another case of a news media outlet allowing a 'legal right' to trump common sense.

This case involves minors. Minors are given protection from having their names published or broadcast in legal matters, particularly when so far there are only allegations and not proven facts established in a court of law. Blackwell's testimony today would no doubt involve the identities of the students who were allegedly part of the actions of former cheerleader coach Jill Moore, who allegedly had a sexual affair with a student and took female cheerleaders to a local motel for sex with two National Guardsmen.

The nature of the facts in this case are so sensitive that prudence, one would think, would dictate discretion on the part of news outlets. Having the legal right to do something and choosing to do it under highly questionable circumstances are two separate issues. WSPA-TV should have turned off the cameras.

Many observers came to the meeting today because they have children in Ware Shoals High School. Many of these took the day off from work to attend. Yet they were deprived of hearing Blackwell's side of the story due to the misguided recklessness on the part of WSPA News. Because of WSPA, these parents and family members were barred from the meeting.

It seems to us that WSPA-TV owes an apology to the persons it inconvenienced today by its dogged determination to ignore prudence in order to 'assert its legal rights.'

So far, today's meeting has been ongoing for 9 hours. We will not know what was said in that meeting. The School Board will not reach a decision concerning Jane Blackwell's job until the next meeting of the Board on April 16.