Asheville Citizen-Times reporter Leslie Boyd has violated the code of journalistic ethics by participating in partisan political events as an advocate while also covering the story for her employer.

Boyd is pictured on the WNC for Change Web site as the keynote speaker at the recent Healthcare Reform Rally held at Pritchard Park in Asheville on June 20, 2009.

Ms. Boyd is a political activist and she is using the tragic story of her son’s disease and death to market her ideological agenda.
I was at the rally where she spoke and heard her maudlin speech. She and others are using the fallacious “appeal to pity” to advance socialistic public policy.

WNC for Change is quite happy with that approach; they use it on their Web site. They see Boyd as an asset in their cause.

I expect AC-T President and Publisher Randy Hammer sees her as an asset as well. I don’t.

Shame on her. Shame on the Citizen-Times.