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StumblePublished Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 | 5:02 p.m.
Updated Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 | 5:05 p.m.
The owner of Tire Works Total Car Care said today during a phone interview on Face to Face that she only called Nina Radetich after Channel 13 General Manager Jim Prather refused to take her call regarding the handling of a News 13 investigation of the company by Darcy Spears. Maybe that’s why Prather is defending what he calls his anchor’s “lapse of judgment.” Others in the news business have other words to describe Radetich’s recommendation of her pitchman boyfriend’s services to spin against her own newsroom’s story on the embattled Tire Works. Freelancer Steve Freiss wonders on tonight’s program how the station could possibly retain its credibility and its star anchor.
Also weighing in, UNLV Journalism School acting director Dan Stout and media law professor Stephen Bates, who was at the side of special prosecutor Ken Starr from the Whitewater years through Monica Lewinsky. As my colleague George Knapp remarked as he and other TV folk checked out the action from our control room, “This guy knows a scandal.”
Also tonight, Tire Works’ owner Roshie Weightman hints that “something big” is expected to develop regarding the story next week.
I don't watch Channel 13 News, anyway. But it would be nice if those who did, would now stop. What Radetich did was sleazy. But she and her employer are just going to hang in there and see if she can weather the storm. Will Las Vegas actually become outraged enough to force her removal?
Excellent interview with Weightman, the owner of Tire Works.
While Dan Stout and Stephen Bates brought much experience and knowledge to the discussion, the Freiss interview went no where.
Sometimes when people criticisze others publicly they come off as attention starved and bitter.
A complete unknown offering their opinion about a situation like this appears self serving and so sleazy.
Please, stick with the pro's.
Illustration of the ineptness of the Gibbons' Administration and the corruption of the value's party. News anchor's boyfriend worked as spin master for Ensign and Gibbons and now has a special projects job with NV Energy. Smells bad like an unfounded rate increase.
Nina bad, Tire works WORST!
Wait till Obama's cap'n'trade kicks in and you'll see 'unfounded rate increases' like a mutha aoxomoxa
Radishtop sure picks a good time to go on vacation. I don't watch 13 ever since they linked up with the local hate-talk station. The soft-ball interview they did (the radio station) was also a journalistic farce. They don't seem to deal with this issue much.
Birds of a feather, unethical together.
I agree with Caroll -- stay away from Steve Friess. He's such self-serving loser. I don't understand why Ralson and Nevada Week in Review have this nobody on their show.
Tire Works may get off this time. It's only a matter of time before the system catches up to their tactics. An old saying, pigs get fat -- hogs get slaughtered. The moral to the saying, you can run your business and make a little money over the long haul or screw people and make a lot of money each sale and close your doors over the short haul.
I went to a Tire Works one time on Tropicana by Fort Apache and the staff there from my point of view were the shadiest group. The instant they tried to sell be 22" rims and tires and they fed me a line garbage about sensors in the rims I had I instantly knew these people are bad news. I said no thanks and ran like hell and will never step foot or recommend their service to anyone.
I went to Ted Wiens Tire and they performed the service I needed and it wasn't new 22" rims and tires. Ted Wiens do have their own issues as well but they did not come out of the chute like the Tire Works personal trying to sell me a bill of goods over a sensor issue. FYI Tire Works, it's been two years and the line of crap I was told was just that a line of crap.
What would help Ted Wiens is to remove the commission sales from the counter agents and put them on a livable wage and promote customer service and prices in line with long term growth goals. I've come to know a few of the personal who work for Ted Wiens and they get the hog syndrome at times when their sales are falling short, commission sales on services isn't good and does create an environment where the customer is treated less than fair.
If the locals followed the business practices of Les Schwab Tires and trained their staff like Les Schwab Ties does then their business model would thrive and customers would be long term clients. It would be nice to see Les Schwab Tires will open stores here. This company is a class act and their sales staff and workers are trained first class.
Who cares about TV nowadays, there's the internet now. TV is dead, long live the internet.
Nina screwed up and Prather is trying to cover it up. The right thing for him to do is fire Nina and be done with it.
Ken Starr being name dropped? A man who waisted millions pursuing Clinton for what? A Republican vendendetta and nothing more - that's what. He is a loser, Ken Starr, and botched, thankfully, all possibilities of being appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States, his lifelong aspiration and dream. The man became one of the most hated men in American and yet his name still pops up as some kind of moral icon for good. Very much like the criminal VP Cheney. As to Nina, she's sunk to the bottom in the most stupid way by attemping extortion and by leaving a easily tracable trail of her attempted fraud. Her boss is part of the cover up now. As Ensign got caught, he tried to cover up too, paid hush money and fired empolyees as a result of cheating. He broke his oath to his public, but that does not get mentioned because it's so taken for granted and accepted that our elected leaders do it daily by making sure the big bucks get the representation and not the folks trasping up and down the Strip looking for a bus. Failure to disclose is a cover up, folks. Prather, so far is covering up. They both, Nina and Prather, have to go if the station wants to have any credibility. Its all rather sad how our values have drooped, dangled and dained since CriminalBush was elected in 2000. Bush tried to give us Ms. Myers for the Supreme Court and McCain tried to give us Palin for VP. Any questions as to why this country almost went into the tubes? But, hey, hang in there, because Jeb Bush is in the bull pin and he's going to introduce more war and economic disasters to us when he wins the Presidencey. Thank You.
I doubt that any Bush could be elected dog catcher. When will they ever learn! Here is one for you - Ensign for President and there may be applicants who want to serve under him!
Some of you guys are sick, going bananas.....What in God's name has politics got to do w/ TireWorks trying to screw the public ???????
13 skypes with a local hate talk station that spews kooky ideas like "WMD was found in Iraq" and "Obama is a commie," etc. They have no credibility.
Desert_Rat I guess you slept throught he last nine years as Bush allowed every business in the world to steal from the public. It was capitalism as he put it. Now you have a president that wants to stop these practices? In the last twenty four hours he is calling for banks to clean up their act, unlike Bush who looked the other way.Are you impaired? Think. It obvious you are not well informed.Get a brain.
Who is Steve Freiss to comment about anyone? Jon Ralston calling Freiss a 'freelance' journalist, when he writes a weekly column for the LV Weekly owned by the same guy Ralston writes for?
Either of these guys are questioning someone else's ethics whent they're not being truthful with their own viewers?
All media use their talent to butter up sponsors including KLAS. Radetich did something stupid, but she's not the first and a reprimand is sufficient.
Did you notice how no credible media would come on to discuss this with Ralston? The took their shots in the papers, but all know they drink, party and stuff with their sponsors too.
This Roshie lady hiring Gentile tells you all you need to know about her, now doesn't it?
If I were KNTV, I would sue Roshie for the illegal taping!
On Nevada Week in Review, Steve Seibelius said that in his view the news anchor should be sacked for breach of journalistic ethics, as well as for trying to obtain a private profit for her boyfriend arising out of a situation the television station's news division was reporting on. Seibelius' ethics opinion is good enough for me.
The fact that a relative newcomer to Las Vegas, Steve Freiss, a writer for the NY Times, agrees is just further proof that legitimate journalists think an unpardonable offense has occurred.
However, Ms. Radetich may have a tough contract, in terms of the TV station's ability to terminate her "for cause", so maybe the station's management, on the advice of their lawyers, have figured out that the least expensive approach, from a cash flow/avoid litigation point of view, is to keep the anchor on staff until the end of her contract term. If that is the case, then it will be interesting to see if Channel 13's ratings drop, leading to a decrease in advertising revenue for the station.
With the current cynicism of the world today, I think people will watch Channel 13 more. Everyone will want to know how this soap opera turns out, so more will view the news like a terrible car wreck.
In the fracas over Nina Radetich, the quality of Darcy Spears' investigative reporting is overlooked.
In 2003, I met Darcy's mother, a well regarded psychologist who works with patients who have been catastrophically paralyzed. Dr. R is on staff at the prestigious Northridge Hospital Physical Rehabilitation Program. Dr. R is proud of her daughter, like any mother, and told me about her daughter's work.
At that time in 2003 studies by the contractors for the EPA, Yale, Environmental Working Group, and several other well regarded research institutes determined that the chemical perchlorate was not safe IN ANY QUANTITY for babies to drink or eat. Not even 1 part per Billion is a safe quantity of perchlorate for an infant.
Babies drink perchlorate contaminated water when their mothers, saving money on infant formula, mix powdered baby formula with tap water. The proven result of babies drinking water containing perchlorate is developmental disabilities which reduce their cognitive skills. In short perchlorate turns normal babies into special education kids.
At that time in 2003, there was a national campaign, by legitimate public interest groups, to alert TV journalists in communities with perchlorate in local drinking water to this risk to infants. At that time, our drinking water in Las Vegas had about 20 parts per billion of perchlorate in it.
Back in 2003, I discussed the research and the public information campaign to protect infants with Dr. R, and expressed my grave concern for the infants in Las Vegas, who were drinking perchlorate contaminated water in their baby formula.
Dr. R was concerned too, and said she would talk to her daughter about doing an investigative news story, to let mothers in Las Vegas know that tap water was not safe for their infants.
A week or so later, Dr. R told me that her daughter Darcy's response was that "We've done enough perchlorate news stories in Las Vegas" and that she had no interest in doing an investigative report to alert mothers to permanent disabilities they were causing their babies, by letting them drink tap water mixed with powdered infant formula.
As a result, back in 2003, I concluded Darcy Spears was not a legitimate, ethical investigative journalist, but simply a light weight headline chaser.
The irony at the time was that Darcy Spears was expecting a baby herself. I am willing to bet she never gave her own child tap water to drink.
CynicalObserver: Anyone with any sense already knows not to use tap water or have been scared to use tap water to do anything other than bathing in it. I would agree with Ms. Spears, that would be overkill since mostly people by bottled everything. I think they are more concerned on how to look on camera than to really helping anyone. But you got to admit, a great story about some kid left to die in a car is much better than a simple flu spreading across the planet.
My Opinion is influenced by personal experience with the investigative aspects of Channel 13. I do believe that they care about issues in the community. I also believe they are bound by political constraints and often must compromise. I have interacted with Darcy Spears and am glad she is in our community. She cares. I do not know Nina and am also saddened but not surprised she was caught up in wrong thinking leading to wrong action. Is she a good person who has been drawn to the dark side due to the company she keeps? I suspect this is a phenotypic problem. I do not believe she is corrupt to the core but that she has been conditioned by her environment. I do not join with the mob demanding a village stoning but wonder what good will come from this both for local media, Nina herself, and our community ? Yes I know this is not as fun as a frenzied village stoning to her demise but I for one am willing to give her at least a shot at redemption. If it is not a fake try I believe our community and all of those involved will actually live through this one illustrious and ironic display of very human error.
In American capitalism, the operative words are 'caveat emptor'. Business needs little government interference for it to work best and efficiently.
City Life complained in an editorial that we're to cynical here on the Radishtop issue, glad the read what's going on.
Too bad she's back with her cynical sneer-smile.
I like the way 13 thinks that a guy trained to spray bugs, is some kind of political pundit, when the do their phony Skype routine with the local hate-talk radio station.