What a great job I have. No complaints from me, at least not after a week when our 10News Investigative team produced five good stories. Each one presented interesting challenges for reporters, producers and me.

Wednesday night at 11pm we broke a story on faulty smoke detectors. It seems they blow up--which is not what you want from a detector. But we didn't stop with just that element. Reporter Marti Emerald dug deeper and found that the guts in most smoke detectors is 1970s technology. The problem is most homes these days have all kinds of vinyl and plastic products throughout the dwelling. When fire starts in a home in 2007, the furnishing and household goods begin releasing noxious, toxic smoke. In the 70s you have an over 10 minutes to get out of a building on fire, nowadays, its two minutes. This information could save some lives.

Thursday an investigation from Steve Atkinson aired. Producer Heidi Ortiz and Kristen Castillo, as well as SDSU intern researcher Natalie Asaro shopped drug stories all over the region. They were buying cold and allergy medicine that can be cooked to make meth. A federal law limits the amount of these over the counter medicines can be purchased in a day, in a month. Not everyone obeyed the law. One problem area stood out; a drug store chain that seems to dance to another drummer. If we paid them, they would sell it to us. When we told their corporte bosses what we found, we didn’t hear any thanks. Nope, their public relations people argued that the law was just a guideline and didn't need to be followed unless the store chose to. The DEA and State Narcotics Bureau said it was the law and it should be followed. But the chain's public relations department wouldn't budge. They can argue it out in court. I just wondered why the chain wouldn’t at least follow the guidelines the law sets down. After all, the last thing we need around San Diego are more meth freaks. Why feed their habit? The chain was C-V-S.

Friday night's story was alot of work. I have piles and piles of responses to an open records act to prove it. It is impossible to open the door to my office without falling over the stuff. Beginning in January we asked and began receiving information from every school district in our region. What did we want? For the districts to provide us their superintendent’s salary and expense reports. What did we find? Too much money? Fair compensation? You decide, the entire list of salaries is near this blog in the investigative section.

This coming Sunday nights investigative story from Lauren Reynolds is a tough one. It centers on a Doctor Denis Nigro, a high profile doctor who does some good things in our community. We even honored him as a 10News Leadership winner. But the 10News Investigative team found out the doctor is accused of sleeping with his patient. The patient-doctor relationship is one of the most honored relationships in our culture. That's why the California Medical Board is serious about this sort of behavior, as they should be. The doctor's attorney and publicist have been flooding us all week with calls and e mails. When you do investigative work, you get used to pressure by those who feel they're being portrayed unfairly. They have every right to complain. And we have an obligation to hear them out. And we do.
Dr. Nigro's people have been especially aggressive. What is odd about this is they don't argue that the patient and the doctor did or did not have sex. Or that Dr. Nigro was also treating his alleged sex partner's husband. Or that the doctor lied to the husband about the affair, or that he asked the husband/patient to convince Mrs. Nigro that nothing was going on. No, the publicist and the attorney want us to drop the story because they say the patient was not a patient when she had the alleged sex with the doctor. They sent a hand written letter from the doctor's alleged lover, where she admits she lusted after the doctor because "he was kind to me" She parrots the publicist and attorney's position, writing Dr. Nigro wasn't her doctor when they had their "intimate relationship" The affair was in 2003, her letter is dated May 4, 2007. I am no lawyer but I've read the ground rules and I believe it doesn’t matter if it is before, during or after you are treating your patient. You can't have sex with your patient. We shall see on this one--as the hearing begins Monday, May 14th. Hopefully we will be allowed access into the state court Monday. It may not happen because as I write this the attorney for Nigro is asking the judge to keep us out of the court room. Attorney Michael Khouri accuses us of being on a witch hunt. I don't agree. I hope the judge doesn’t agree either We shall see.

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