More Journalist Payola ! Scrushy (Health South)Bought Sympathetic Stories

[KoKo]

AP
Writer: Scrushy Bought Sympathetic Stories
Thursday January 19, 12:52 pm ET
By Jay Reeves, Associated Press Writer

Scrushy Paid for Sympathetic News Stories Amid 6-Month Trial, Writer Reveals
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Throughout the six-month trial that led to Richard Scrushy's acquittal in the $2.7 billion fraud at HealthSouth Corp., a small, influential newspaper consistently printed articles sympathetic to the defense of the fired CEO.

Audry Lewis, the author of those stories in The Birmingham Times, the city's oldest black-owned paper, now says she was secretly working on behalf of Scrushy, who she says paid her $11,000 through a public relations firm and typically read her articles before publication.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press show The Lewis Group wrote a $5,000 check to Audry Lewis on April 29, 2005 -- the day Scrushy hired the company. The head of the company, Times founder Jesse J. Lewis Sr., is not related to Audry Lewis.


The firm wrote another $5,000 check that day to the Rev. Herman Henderson, who employs Audry Lewis at his Believers Temple Church and was among the black preachers supporting Scrushy who were present in the courtroom throughout.

Audry Lewis and Henderson now say Scrushy owes them $150,000 for the newspaper stories and other public relations work, including getting black pastors to attend the trial in a bid to sway the mostly black jury.

The payments raise questions about the legitimacy of the ostensibly grass roots support for Scrushy seen throughout his trial

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060119/scrushy_payments.html?.v=3&printer=1

[LizW]

1. Good god.

They're complaining because they didn't get their payola up front and Scrushy stiffed them once he got off?

That's just pathetic.

[htuttle]

2. That seems a little bit like...

...those occasional idiots who complain to the police that they just got ripped off in a drug deal. "It was bunk man! It was just powdered sugar!"

[KoKo]

3. And...that they see nothing wrong with it all! I think the whole country

is now suffering from that "Culture of Corruption." Sure shows the lack of credibility in anything one reads in our One Newspaper Towns, these days.... And, paying church members. I remember the reports of him a joining a black church...and thought it odd at the time. Now we know. :eyes: