SLDC blasts KMOV over misleading use of interview recordings

St. Louis Development Corporation calls Kmov over a short story they sent with the agency’s CEO Neal Richardson. The city’s development arm accuses CBS -associated companies, also known as First Alert 4, of false and misleading coverage that “breaks the basic of journalism.”

Monday had KMOV reported This State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick conducted a preliminary investigation into how SLDC assigned Arpa-funded grant-a program that drew negative attention after Post-Dispatch reported That some of the money intended for North City companies seemed to be on their way to units that were not companies and not in North City.

Then Tuesday the station sent a curious Follow -upalleged about SLDC who responded to this development. It contained a 35-second clip of Richardson and said the agency is making its decisions where they have to invest based on financial needs rather than the policy-a statement that was pretty orthogonal to news of Fitzpatrick’s audit.

SLDC spokesman Deion Broxton says it’s because these recordings were actually taken from an interview KMOV that was led to a story about SLDC that helps a black business linked to coincide with Black History Month. Richardson’s answer not only seemed like a non-sequent, but was actually a non-sequent.

Broxton issued a press release Friday morning to various local media, NAACP St. Louis and the National Association of Black Journalists, who demanded KMOV, issued a withdrawal.

The release says that after SLDC contacted KMOV, the reporter, who had interviewed Richardson, apologized and added that the recordings were used in the context of the audit without their knowledge. Broxton added that he had contacted Station Management several times and asked for withdrawal but had not got one. “It’s been almost three days since the error occurred, and KMOV has not yet issued a public withdrawal or given SLDC an indication of how it will react,” the statement said.

KMOV’s CEO Scott Diener tells Slm The station will let viewers know that the clip they ran by Richardson was not in response to the auditor’s probe “, but about how SLDC works more generally. Diener added:” The sound bit was harmless and has no bearing on the Missouri State Auditors probe. “

On typical St. Louis-way is complicated dust-up by the fact that Broxton is an earlier KMOV reporter and last year got Richardson engaged To one of KMOV’s news anchors, Samantha Jones.

Broxton says he can’t comment on Richardson’s relationship with Jones. However, Broxton said that he had just left KMOV in November: “It could have been any news place. Unfortunately, it was my previous sales. This is strictly professional. “

Broxton says: “I want them to address the public that they mistakenly represented Neal Richardson’s comments on them and to Missouri State’s auditor, and I want them to send a letter to Missouri State Auditor who recognizes the error, So it doesn’t smash study. ”

In the question of the station planned to do these things, Diener repeated that the station let viewers know that the sound bite was not an answer to a question about the auditor’s probe. The station director added: “I wouldn’t know why we would contact the auditor’s office.”

Broxton also tells Slm He hopes the station’s withdrawal will not come for a weekend and says that he knows from the experience of these broadcasts getting fewer eyeballs. “It would have been our preference if the statement or withdrawal had been issued on Wednesday,” he says.