How To Get Nina Radetich Fired

Both newspapers did a terrific job today of holding corrupt KTNV anchor Nina Radetich and her ridiculous, standards-less boss, Jim Prather, accountable for the fact that she's off the hook for forewarning a local auto shop chain of a coming investigative story and offering her boyfriend's PR services to mitigate the bad publicity. Her sycophant, Prather, has decided to keep Radetich despite that fact that his own credibility is destroyed by doing so, his newsroom is in a total outrage and his ratings have DROPPED since he hired this very expensive and perplexingly favored anchor.

The Las Vegas Sun ran an editorial but the power punch was from Review-Journal's media columnist Steve Bornfeld, who not only gave it to Radetich and Prather but also documented, as we have here, the strange pattern of hirings/firings at KTNV. Bornfeld also wrote that Nina read a prepared statement to her colleagues apologizing for the controversy but not the betrayal. So there's no contrition, phony (Joe Wilson) or genuine (Kanye West) here. Yeesh.

One thing Bornfeld wrote really got me thinking:

But Channel 13's modus operandi on these matters also seems based on what the cameras see, not what the facts say, as if visual documentation of an offense makes it real for viewers, therefore a more fireable act.

Futrell's disheveled mug shot hit the press in July '08 -- fired. Last February, Rikki Cheese, picked up on a DUI charge, sidestepped a public mug shot -- employed. In August '08, reporter Jeff Gradney shopped for a male sex partner on Craigslist for a threesome with his girlfriend, accompanied by a photo of them enjoying a carnal romp -- fired. Radetich commits an out-of-camera-range offense -- employed.

OK. So that's the solution: The tapes of Radetich must be released. It's not video, but it does engage the senses. That's the only way to keep KTNV from sweeping it under the rug and the public forgetting all about it. Newspaper articles are fine, but let's HEAR Nina sell out her colleagues. Get it on YouTube and all over the place.

I'm heading to KLAS' studio to appear on Jon Ralston's "Face to Face" on this shortly. He's got the woman who created the tapes -- not sure if she's going public or will be in shadows -- and I'm going to lobby for that. Ralston just told me on the phone, by the way: "Whatever you think, if you heard the tapes you'd know it's so much worse."

Watch his show later today.