Veteran Minnesota Public Radio reporter resigns, claims bosses covered for Current DJ accused of sexual misconduct

Tommy Wiita
Marianne Combs.[Courtesy of MPR News.]

Marianne Combs, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter for 23 years, resigned Monday, claiming her bosses at the news station are covering for a DJ at its sister station, 89.3 The Current, who has been accused of sexual misconduct on multiple occasions.

Combs took to Twitter Monday morning, stating "I have spent the past two and a half months investigating allegations made about the conduct of a DJ at our sister station, @TheCurrent. In that time, I gathered testimony from eight women who say that he sexually manipulated and psychologically abused them."

Combs, an arts and culture reporter, did not name the DJ.

"My editors have failed to move forward on the story. They have countered that the DJ’s actions were, for the most part, legal, and therefore don’t rise to the level of warranting news coverage," she said in a Twitter thread explaining her resignation, further stating this reporting had been ongoing for months and management would not go public with it.

Combs said the experiences she has heard from victims spans over 15 years and most of the women were "younger, sexually inexperienced women."

She said she had her story approved by MPR’s legal counsel, as the lawyer said the story was "compelling and well-sourced," adding that there was no legal threat to MPR News for airing the story.

"While the editors have not gone so far as to cancel the story, they have shown such a complete lack of leadership that I no longer have any confidence they will handle the story appropriately," Combs said, adding that the DJ in question remains employed by The Current.

The veteran reporter also said this isn’t the first occasion where the newsroom has gathered and neglected stories of abuse surrounding women.

"For many of these women it took more than a decade to find the courage to speak up; when they eventually did, they put their trust in MPR News and me," she said.

MPR President Duchesene Drew provided the following statement to KSTP on the matter:

“For more than 53 years, Minnesota Public Radio has been guided by our public service mission to inform and inspire the people we serve. Fulfilling this mission requires an unwavering commitment to build trust – with our own employees and with diverse audiences and communities.

We were shocked by Marianne Combs’ decision to resign her position at MPR News. That said, I fully support the editors who reviewed her story. The MPR News editors decided that the story, which deals with complex and sensitive issues, is not ready to run because it does not meet our journalistic standards. In fact, they were blindsided by Marianne’s resignation and expected that she was continuing to work on the story. Editors had discussed with her how to strengthen the story so it might meet our standards. That’s common practice in this business. Investigative stories take time for good reason and the editors who were shepherding this story were doing so in a responsible way that met our journalism and ethics standards.

The sources in the story do not allege that the subject of the story assaulted them or did anything illegal. None of the sources in the story were willing to be identified. The reporting could not confirm that any of the women had reported their allegations or incidents to authorities. No complaints regarding any action by him have been brought forward to MPR’s HR staff. No MPR employee has made any accusations against him on their own behalf, nor on behalf of other employees. And when we hired him, his background check came back clear.

The MPR News editors use discipline in applying our high standards for journalism. The MPR newsroom seeks independent legal counsel on First Amendment and other matters related to our reporting. Our editors, not attorneys, decide when a story is ready to run. Neither I nor any other members of senior leadership at Minnesota Public Radio or American Public Media Group were involved in shaping or reviewing the story. Doing so would have been inappropriate. In fact, there’s a firewall between the newsroom and senior leaders of the company.

The integrity of our journalism is a bedrock principle for us. Facts matter, to us and to our audiences, and we work hard to earn the trust of every listener by honoring the highest standards of professional journalism in every story. I trust MPR News editors to apply those standards for every story we report, and I stand by their decisions on this story.”

-Duchesne Drew, President, MPR

To see Combs’s full resignation post on Twitter, click on the Tweet below.