WFTV removes story about Andrea Lyons remarks-but here it is on You Tube!

by artgal16 Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:51 am

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From Hal Boedeker's Blog:

WFTV-Channel 9's Kathi Belich last night offered an eye-opening report on Andrea Lyon, a member of Casey Anthony's defense team. The report drew on comments that Lyon made last year at an Orlando conference of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

But you can't find the story on WFTV's Web site.

"We took it down. It was an editorial judgment," WFTV news director Bob Jordan said today. "Our feeling is the story had its run."

The station had received a call from Barry Wax, a Miami lawyer who puts on the seminar and gets the speakers for the professional group.

"We pulled it down as a courtesy to the attorney," Jordan said. "He said it compromises his ability get attorneys to come to his seminars as presenters."

Wax agreed that the station took the story down as a courtesy.

"The seminar is a program that the group puts on so lawyers can be qualified to handle capital cases," Wax said. "The seminar is one of the finest death-penalty seminars in the country. The information shared in those seminars is proprietary and is meant to stay with members. We ask for that privacy so speakers can speak freely without fear of it being compromised."

How did this private information reach the public?

"The fact this was disseminated without the permission of our organization and Andrea Lyon and surreptitiously obtained by an individual ... really was very troubling to all of us," Wax said. "Not for the content but for the way it was used for media purposes that was beyond the purpose for what it was intended. I made a request of Bob Jordan that it be removed, and he honored my request."

Wax described himself as a firm proponent of the First Amendment.

"I'd never try to silence the media, but I believe this was our proprietary material," Wax said.