Two KTVX employees have been charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors for allegedly encouraging five Carbon High students to chew tobacco on camera.
Channel 4 reporter Mary Sawyers and photographer Joe Krueger were charged Friday in 7th District Juvenile Court with the five Class B misdemeanor counts. Both the juvenile court and 7th District Court have jurisdiction in such cases.The students were cited for tobacco use and suspended from school for one day when the segment aired last February, said principal Doug Hintze.
But KTVX issued a statement Wednesday saying the employees in no way participated in acts contributing to the delinquency of the minors, who supplied and chewed their own tobacco as part of a story on such habits.
"We are aware of no criminal act or violation on the part of the reporter and photographer, and we are confident they will be exonerated," the release stated.
"I don't see it a First Amendment issue as much as an attempt at intimidation," KTVX News Director John Edwards told the Deseret News.
The station contends a substance-abuse counselor at the school arranged for an 18-year-old student and four 16-year-olds to be interviewed. The release also states the students voluntarily used the tobacco on camera as part of an interview.
But Price Police Chief Aleck Shilaos believes the station coerced the five into breaking the law. Utah residents must be at least 19 to chew tobacco.
"I think that Channel 4 news took advantage of the situation," Shilaos said. "Everyone wants to be on TV. They just encouraged that feeling."
Edwards denied the claim.
On Feb. 18, Sawyers and Krueger were at Carbon High School to report on an assembly featuring speaker Rick Bender, a former tobacco chewer who lost part of his face to cancer.
Before the assembly, Sawyers asked a Four Corners Mental Health employee, who works closely with the school, if she could locate students who chewed tobacco for interviews.
Five students were summoned from a physical education class, Hintze said. KTVX states the five indicated they usually chew during lunch outside of school.
Hintze says the boys asked Sawyers if they would get in trouble if they chewed tobacco on camera. He says KTVX employees indicated they would not.
But Edwards denies the allegation, saying one student after the taping asked Sawyers if there would be consequences to his acts, to which Sawyers answered that she had no idea.
The school's media department taped the segment, which aired that evening and included clips of boys dipping into cans, placing tobacco in their mouths and spitting, Edwards confirmed.