Rogers takes look at Cegavske issue

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 | 9:31 a.m.

Sunbelt Communications Chairman Jim Rogers says he is looking into whether or not his local television station overstepped any ethical boundaries by hiring Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, as a consultant on legislative issues.

"We're looking into it, and if we did something wrong, we'll say it's wrong," said Rogers, the owner of KVBC Channel 3 and currently the interim chancellor of the University and Community College System of Nevada.

Rogers has been paying Cegavske $3,000 a month since late 2003 to consult with the station on education, health care and Legislative issues, including lecturing television reporters on the legal process, he said.

Both local and national journalism ethics professors have questioned the appropriateness of the relationship since Cegavske disclosed her employment during a joint finance committee meeting last week.

Chief among their questions is whether Cegavske has a conflict of interest in consulting on issues she will be voting on, and whether the news station has damaged its credibility by hiring a current lawmaker to shape their news coverage.

Cegavske regularly disclosed her relationship with Rogers during interim meetings, but because of the current flap, Rogers said Cegavske "might not" work for him much longer.

"First you have to look at something like this and say, 'Did you violate the law?' Assume you didn't, then you look at if there is a perception that what you did won't wash, and if that becomes the perception, you terminate the relationship," Rogers said.

Rogers said he offered Cegavske, a friend of his wife Beverly, the consulting work soon after she and her husband sold their business. He said he thought the newsroom could gain from her expertise, and that it would take up some of the extra time on her hands.

Barbara Cloud, who specializes in journalism history as a professor in UNLV's Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies, said the arrangement may have cost both Cegavske and Rogers credibility.

Cloud questioned whether the pay check might influence Cegavske in her votes and whether Channel 3 might be inappropriately swayed in what issues they cover or how they cover them because they are only hearing Cegavske's views on the topics.

"The credibility of the media is so poor now anyway that they can't afford to undermine it further," Cloud said.

Several other journalism professors at UNLV also said they saw a conflict of interest in hiring Cegavske as a news consultant, and none had ever heard of a media outlet hiring a current lawmaker in this way before.

Mary Hausch, assistant professor of journalism at UNLV, said the news station would have been better served if they had used the $3,000 a month to allow a reporter to cover the Legislature full time in Carson City.

Currently, KLAS Channel 8 is the only television station covering the Legislature fulltime, Hausch said.

"If they (Channel 3) are sincere in wanting to have the best coverage possible, the way to do that is to staff it," Hausch said, who discussed the issue with her journalism ethics students in class Monday.

As the wife of Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, she limited her comments only to the news station's role.

Cegavske did not return calls for comment.