News 14 Carolina - Political Connections

Not sure if you heard but the charges have been dropped in the Duke Lacrosse case?? Ha ha..

I spend yesterday covering Roy Cooper's news conference. It was quite interesting behind the scenes. Randomly the national media has come to North Carolina to cover the case. As most of you know, the local media has covered nearly once a week or more for a year now and often several days a week.

Well, the AG's office reserved the front two rows for local media. That meant Katie Couric the rest of the "big" names were stuck in the back. On top of that once Coop started taking questions he allowed local media to ask the first 7-8 questions ignoring Couric's eager hand waving in the air.

It's a small, unnoticable victory for local media but a big one in our hearts. See, no matter how much we cover a story, when the national outlets get here we quickly get pushed aside typically. It happened during the Michael Peterson case, and in many ways it happened during much of the coverage of the Duke story. But, not on this day at this news conference.

The shock on the faces of the national reporters and producers was priceless and something I will never forget. Look, they are great at what they do and I'm not knocking them, but for this reporter who's been ignored many a times because a national outlet was covering the story it was a great day!

On another note, Sen. Rand and Clodfelter already have a bill filed giving a governor the chance to suspend a DA if they are being investigated by the state bar. I'm told one relating to Cooper's request for the State Supreme Court to remove a "rogue" DA could be coming soon if they meet with Cooper's staff soon.