March 3, 2008

f-brilliant:

KKOB Radio afternoon drive time news anchor Laura MacCallum quit her job last Thursday after the station’s news director pulled her stories about alleged vote-buying efforts at the recent Bernalillo County Republican Party delegate nominating conventions.

MacCallum, a 32-year radio and TV news veteran who has worked in Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, said the station caved to complaints from Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s Senate campaign about the stories. Wilson campaign spokeswoman Whitney Cheshire called the station to argue the unfairness of stories alleging that many delegates to the ward conventions were paid by Wilson’s and other campaigns to show up and cast their votes for certain delegates.

Critics of the alleged vote-buying effort say it was an unfair scheme to lock out any challengers to Wilson’s senate and Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White’s congressional campaigns

KKOB News Director Pat Allen said the stories were pulled, not because of the campaign’s complaints, but because he felt they lacked corroboration and that a source in some of MacCallum’s stories, former New Mexico Governor Dave Cargo, was bitter because he wasn’t elected as a delegate to the upcoming state Republican Party nominating convention.

But here's the best part: one of the reasons cited by the station manager for not running the story is because it "would have been picked up by bloggers" and other news agencies if it was valid.

We know that Heather Wilson has been guilty of placing pressure on the US Attorney's office in the past, it's certainly within her character to try to squelch a story like this, which could cost her her seat.

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