NewsRadio 106.7 fired host Steve McCoy after he claimed he recently interviewed Donald Trump even though he didn’t. Instead, he re-aired an old audio clip of an old conversation with Trump.
NewsRadio 106.7’s program manager Greg Tantum told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “For obvious reasons, Steve McCoy no longer works at the station. Cheryl White, Drew Nelson and Randy Wyles will continue to provide Atlanta with a high energy news product that accentuates breaking news as well as in depth coverage on the top stories.”
One of McCoy’s former co-workers, Vikki Locke, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “He’s not a journalist but made a mistake by editing an old interview of Donald Trump and playing it back on 106.7 this week and claiming it was current. Dumb move, yes.”
McCoy introduced the old interview Oct. 13, and said it was from the day before, according to BuzzFeed, McCoy said:
“Yesterday, I got a call from a buddy of mine who is working with Trump on a phone call that we were going to get. We were hoping he’d call yesterday during the show but could not. It came with some restrictions, I couldn’t ask anything about his current policies and that they had the right to x out any questions that I did ask and we got through about three minutes of it. So here it is now, my call with Donald Trump.”
Shortly after being suspended, McCoy announced he has Parkinson’s disease.
When questions were first raised about the interview, McCoy said he interviewed Trump Oct. 12 and that Trump’s campaign wouldn’t permit any questions about it, BuzzFeed reported, but Trump’s team denied the interview took place.
See more from BuzzFeed about the incident.
iMediaEthics has written to McCoy and Trump’s team for comment.
Hat Tip: Gawker