Stealing stories

Pellerano It might be legal to steal someone else’s news story, but we doubt it’s ethical. Over the years the Chesterfield Observer has endured these thefts, but it does gripe our collective souls.

In our Oct. 20 issue we reported on a former Winterpock Elementary School teacher who pled guilty to secretly videotaping a 17-year-old boy in a bathroom. Steve J. Curtis’ employment has since been terminated, and he is on the Virginia State Police’s sex offender website.

Employees of WWBT (NBC-12) and WTVR (CBS-6) reviewed our story, made a phone call or two and aired their version of the story in their 11 p.m. newscasts the same night. Neither station gave this newspaper credit for being the primary source of their story.

After a few questions reporter Angela Pellerano gave up her boss, Mike Bergazzi, WTVR’s executive news producer. “My producer forwarded the story to me,” she admitted. “We saw it online and independently confirmed it.”

Nobles WWBT’s Ryan Nobles said his station had been tipped off by the victim’s mother, who asked the station not to do a story.

“She told us the story was coming out in your paper…” explained Nobles. “We did read the story in your paper, but we sourced everything on our own.” He agreed that our newspaper’s story “pointed us in the right direction.”

Knowing Curtis’ identity, both stations went online to the sex offender registry and got his address. Independently they both went to where Curtis lives in a Midlothian Turnpike motel and knocked on his door with cameras rolling, asking for an interview. Gotcha journalism. In our interviews with the television reporters, we called that tactic “provoking a confrontation” and suggested it could have been dangerous.

Pellerano advised us to “call [her] station,” adding that she “couldn’t answer these questions” about station policy. Bergazzi didn’t return our call.

Terming our question “a pretty ridiculous accusation,” Nobles seemed personally offended. “We’re a television station, so a key part of how we deliver information is getting people on camera,” he added.

Nobles pointed out that picking up stories from other media is common. He even e-mailed a link from MSNBC, an NBC affiliated cable channel. “They used my YouTube clip, took a direct quote from my story that only I obtained and at no point gave NBC12 credit,” he wrote. We responded: “There are a lot of things that are unethical, but that doesn’t make it right.”

While the Chesterfield Observer has room to complain, the story thefts by broadcasters from the Richmond Times-Dispatch (RTD) are much more common. For example, at 1 p.m. on Oct. 26 during a Budget & Audit Committee meeting, Chesterfield County officials announced a proposed 3 percent bonus for most county employees. All the media were notified of the meeting, but as usual, only three newspapers (including this paper) showed up for the 40-minute meeting.

Later that afternoon, “my phones lit up,” said Allan Carmody, the county’s budget and management director, who ran the meeting. The stations wanted to confirm the news because no press release had been issued.

So how did those stations hear about the bonus proposal? At 2:38 p.m. RTD reporter Zachary Reid posted his story on the daily paper’s website.