Congressman McKeon's office may not have "forced" KHTS to lay off political reporter Mark Archuleta and News Director Carol Rock as station owner Carl Goldman said in an editorial this morning, but new details suggest that McKeon's office was very interested in how KHTS was covering the Congressman's campaign in the days ahead of the October 10 McKeon/Rogers debate.
Rock and Archuleta were pulled off coverage of the McKeon/Rogers race on October 3rd by Goldman, according to Carol Rock. And, two days later on October 5, Rock says she, Archuleta and station owner Goldman met with Buck McKeon's district director Morris Thomas and Press liaison Allisa McCurley at McKeon's local office.
The purpose of the meeting, according to Rock, was to see if KHTS and the Congressman's media office could "start fresh" and to meet Alissa McCurley for the first time.
I asked Alissa McCurley what the meeting was about and who called it and she responded with this statement:
"That meeting was not called by our office. It was a meeting that Mr. Goldman set up and whenever a constituent calls a meeting with the Congressman, we are not at liberty to discuss the contents of that meeting."To give you some context for the meeting, the day before Archuleta and Rock were taken off the McKeon race, Archuleta wrote a tough piece on the FEC Fine of the McKeon campaign, which followed Signal & VeCo Star reporting. And on September 21, Archuleta reported on McKeon's lame-duck CEMEX bill, with "Some See Political Ploy" in the headline.
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| Articles critical of McKeon appeared just before Rock, Archuleta and Goldman met with McKeon's office |
"Carl and Mark and I went to McKeon's office to meet with Alyssa and Morris. Without sharing the details, I will say that both Mark's and my professionalism and ethics were thrown under the bus," Rock told me.
"I left the meeting insulted and betrayed," Rock said.
I've asked Carl Goldman about the meeting but have not received a response.
Five days later, Stephen Peeples, a non-political reporter for KHTS, covered the debate between McKeon & Rogers at the Hyatt in Valencia. And less than a week after that, Rock was polishing up her resume.
Rock is not certain if she was let go because of pressure from McKeon's office, but she says there was pressure from station management "to be very careful of what was written" about the campaign.
She acknowledges, however, that this could all just be a "weird coincidence."
"Carl may be right," she said.
What's not in doubt, however, is that both Rock and Archuleta were fine reporters covering one of the most exciting Congressional campaigns in this valley's history. And they've been let go three weeks before the Election Day by a radio station that has in the past not been afraid to speak truth to power. We're all poorer as a result and it's not like The Signal is going to step in and fill the gap.
Rock, a 20 year veteran journalist who has worked for just about every media property in a 20 miles radius, says she's sick of politics and glad the election is almost over. She too has been un-personed from the KHTS website, but says that doesn't phase her.
"Wow. Good thing that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still an award-winning journalist with integrity, professionalism and a following."
Here's hoping we hear from Mark Archuleta for his take on what happened at KHTS.
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