Hatchet Job

This one has me scratching my head. Kleinheider posts today about Yuri Cunza, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. Apparently, another reporter contacted Cunza yesterday for a quote on the forced prostitution ring broken up by the FBI. Cunza, who was at lunch when the call came in, agreed to meet the reporter and comment. In the piece, he made some good points, not the least of which is that the immigrant community will have to keep watch for these types of awful crimes, and that it is vital for immigrants to know they can report crimes without fear of reprisals. That should have been the end of the story. Not so fast, you say, Adam? What about Yuri's alleged fondness for strip clubs? How about his criminal record? Well, frankly, before Volunteers Voters posted those facts on their website, I didn't know these things about Mr. Cunza. To my thinking, I still shouldn't know. I don't care if he set up an office on the stripper's runway, it would have nothing to do with the story that he commented about. If I were Mr. Cunza, I'd be more than a little hot about this unnecessary personal attack. As I stated above, I'm still unclear as to his motivation. Was he attempting to undermine a colleagues story? Does he have some undisclosed personal vendetta towards Mr. Cunza? A more likely explanation may be that Mr. Kleinheider did not deem Mr. Cunza worthy enough to voice outrage over this poor girl's plight. That would have at least been consistent, as evidenced by his rather souless post about Claudia Nunez.
Adam indeed has a penchant for Rule of Law. And I mean the strictest possible application of it as well. No problem, I know many people like him. But I have to ask, what law did Yuri Cunza break? Whatever his past history, absent some conviction for some offense of "moral turpitude", the fact remains that he is a local businessman, well connected to the immigrant community, and therefore a suitable choice for a reporter looking for a quote about an immigrant related event. From time to time I am contacted by local reporters to comment about immigrant issues, however, I may be less inclined to grant an interview if I will be subjecting myself to this kind of scrutiny. Adam, this was a rookie mistake, and you should be man enough to apologize to Yuri Cunza as fast as possible...

Update: Volunteer Voters has cleansed their site of the article, so I am just going to post the link from Nashville is talking:

Volunteer Voters
Cunza Found Somebody Better?
Yesterday our wonderful Hispanic Affairs Video Journalist Amy Napier packaged a very important piece...
11/14/2006 (13:52:32)