LEO Weekly writes a controversial cover story and their magazine starts disappearing. That's the situation the free publication faced late last week.
A well-known conservation group "River Fields" has been caught up in it, accused of taking LEOs off the stands.
The issue, out last Wednesday, wasn't very friendly to River Fields, one of the main groups that has been fighting the East End Bridge. Leo Weekly interviewed River Fields for the story but also dove into the way the powerful group works, and what happened next proved someone didn't like it.
"We got a phone call on Thursday morning saying LEOs seem to be disappearing in vast numbers," recalls Stephen George. He doesn't usually deal with mysteries as editor of LEO Weekly. Last week, copies of the magazine's issue called "Burned Bridge" went missing by the hundreds.
LEO says they're not talking about people coming by and taking 2 copies of the magazine or even 4 or 5 at a time. They say that in the stands that got hit, someone literally wiped out every single copy available.
"And we got a tip that it had been someone associated with River Fields. Then we got another tip about that," Stephen told WHAS11, and the tips didn't surprise him because LEO’s cover story didn't put River Fields in a very good light especially regarding the group's opposition to the East End Bridge.
River Fields wouldn't talk to us on-camera about the allegations.
The group’s attorney Robert Griffith responded via email saying, "The charge that River Fields has stolen a free publication is frivolous, false, and an attempt to draw an esteemed community organization into a pointless and sophomoric debate. Whatever the real purpose of the false accusation might be, it's certainly not to get at the truth."
Stephen George also feels strongly about the missing magazines, "It suggests to me that they're trying to strong-arm the press. It was a critical story. The story was very critical of River Fields. That's part of what we do as journalists."
Despite threats of a lawsuit, Stephen published an editorial about the swiped magazines in the latest issue. LEO even temporarily changed its cost on this week’s cover from "Priceless" to "Notoriously Free."
"It's very serious. It's very serious to us that someone is trying to block what is essentially the first amendment rights to all of us to have a voice,” Stephen believes.
River Fields also paid for a full page ad in the latest issue of LEO Weekly. The group responds to last week's report, accusing the magazine of name-calling.
Read the original controversial article: Burned Bridge by Steve Shaw
Read the editorial: Editor's Note by Stephen George
