Newsroom No-No's

KTSM has found itself in the center of controversy again in just a matter of weeks. As you may recall I wrote a short while ago about how a story was taken off the air allegedly at the behest of one of the subjects of the story, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser. 

Leeser is a large purchaser of airtime at local stations because of his car dealership. 

The story was about his sudden divorce and the documents surrounding his multi-million dollar divorce settlement.  

The station has received criticism lately due to their controversial anchor Christina Aguayo. She is apparently El Paso's answer to Alex Jones. She came over to the station from a now-defunct ultra extremist conservative network called America's voice. 

According to multiple sources at KTSM, long-time El Paso newsman Darren Hunt was let go from KTSM a day after a confrontation took place in the newsroom involving Hunt and Aguayo. I'll lay it all out for you, but first - some context.

You'd think that Nexstar local General Manager David Candelaria would've exercised more caution when hiring the controversial news figure. Aguayo had her Twitter account suspended for posting COVID misinformation. 

Thats a danger to public health, so you'd think Candelaria would've reconsidered her employment at KTSM considering its the station's job to inform the community - not misinform. 

It got so bad at one point that Aguayo had a 5 minute story Ken Paxton - who she called a family man (he's accused of getting a job for his mistress from a donor) - and never once mentioned the fact that he's currently facing a probe from the FBI and was indicted. No story ever gets 5 minutes on a 30 minute news cast. 

Actually its not 30 minutes. There are commercial breaks in that 30 minute time frame. That story should've been reported by Paxton as an in-kind contribution for his re-election campaign. 

Major No-No in journalism to have a story with absolutely no balance. 

Aguayo has been seen as a "friendly" to Republicans which is why the station has been getting "exclusives" with statewide Republican leaders.

I sure hope KTSM starts a station softball team because they need to make Aguayo the pitcher. I haven't seen someone that good at pitching softballs since the last time I watched the olympics. 

Many of the employees at KTSM are embarrassed by the "reporting" done by Aguayo. But seems to have escalated to a pretty controversial level at this point. 

Aguayo almost doesn't even bother to hide her political perspective and lets it color many of her news stories. She's in the practice of referring to Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate and former El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke as Robert Francis O'Rourke. 

As you know that is what Republicans call Beto because they don't like the fact that he goes by Beto. 

Multiple sources at KTSM indicate that Hunt had written the script to a story about Beto O'Rourke's Campaign announcement for governor and shortly thereafter, Aguayo changed the script to read "Robert Francis O'Rourke" instead of "Beto O'Rourke". 

O'Rourke appears on the ballot as Beto O'Rourke. 

Aguayo was confronted about the change in script by Hunt and he flat out asked her why she changed the name. Aguayo indicated that she changed the script because that is his real name. Another member of the newsroom immediately questioned Aguayo why she never refers to Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz by his real name, Raphael. Hunt apparently made a comment to the affect that she was letting her true colors show when she does stuff like that.

A day later, Hunt was allegedly called in to speak to management and was let go from KTSM after just a few weeks of working there. 

But the more disturbing thing that allegedly has occurred at the station is what appears to be a black-balling situation. 

Sources say Darren Hunt was prevented from appearing on camera after an advertiser who sells cars called David Candelaria with concerns about Darren Hunt's time at KVIA. There was no specific incident or situation alleged buy the advertiser, but it appears the message conveyed was to keep Darren Hunt off the air. 

Darren Hunt is exactly the kind of reporter a local television station needs. He has decades of institutional knowledge, something you just can't buy but is vital to a healthy newsroom. When you don't have institutional knowledge then news coverage lacks depth and context and is simply inferior reporting. And Darren Hunt is a tenacious reporter. 

Hell, the vato got arrested on television while covering a story. 

Simply put, Darren Hunt had balls. 

Even if Hunt isn't your favorite brand of whiskey, it is still a major newsroom no-no to have an advertiser dictate news coverage. That should enrage every El Pasoan reading this, regardless of your personal opinion about a reporter. The news that comes on your television into your home - most especially your local news - shouldn't be dictated by El Paso's wealthy business owners. 

And nor should a situation like that be enabled by a station's general manager. 

And where the hell is the news director? A news director is supposed to protect their reporters from outside pressure in order to protect the institution of journalism. 

It isn't exactly a secret that Candelaria is prone to submitting to the will of outside pressure. When I had my radio show I was called into his office once because Theresa Caballero kept calling to complain about my radio show. At the time, I was basically the only one at the station that wasn't afraid of Caballero. Candelaria flat-out told me I was no longer allowed to say her name on the radio. 

I then referred to her as TC. 

I was eventually called back into his office over that. 

In fact I was called in a couple more times because she called in and brow beat him into submission.

Its not supposed to be that way - reporters should be free from outside pressure from advertisers or anyone with Candelaria's cell phone number.

Journalism is about ethics and integrity, not ad dollars and the bottom line. 

There's more on Aguayo, stay tuned.