Radio Host Fired for Passing Off Years-Old Donald Trump Interview as New
An Atlanta news radio host has been fired after he dusted off a years-old interview with Donald Trump and billed it as a new piece when it aired Tuesday.
Steve McCoy, who worked for NewsRadio 106.7 until this week, interviewed Trump years ago when he was a morning DJ at a different station. This week, he “made a few changes to make it sound current” and advertised it as a shiny new exclusive, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
When a BuzzFeed reporter raised questions about the interview, including its odd lack of discussion about Trump’s current campaign for president, McCoy said that Trump’s handlers had nixed any policy questions.
Trump’s campaign later said Trump hadn’t talked to McCoy, and the host was suspended from NewsRadio 106.7 pending an investigation.
“For obvious reasons Steve McCoy no longer works at the station,” program director Greg Tantum said Friday.
And that’s not even the most unfortunate thing going on in McCoy’s life right now. His former Star 94 cohost, Vicki Locke, told the AJC Thursday that McCoy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2006, and has been battling it in secret for nearly a decade.
Both Locke and the AJC’s Rodney Ho argued that McCoy is “not a journalist. He’s an entertainer.”
