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Last Thursday, the spokeswoman for the Orange County DA's office issued a press release with unusual content. Susan Kang Schroeder accused the news website Voice of OC of "years of inaccurate and unethical web 'reporting'" (her air quotes.) Now the website responds with a post giving the background. Essentially, Voice of OC says, Kang argues she was misquoted in a story last week. The website's reporter, Adam Elmahrek, says the quote was accurate, but after Schroeder went ballistic they added a graf about her claim to be misquoted. But the dispute is not over.
Schroeder's accusations stem from an article Voice of OC published on Thursday regarding the DA's investigation into a questionable real estate deal involving Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido….[skip]
Schroeder was not satisfied with the update and demanded, in profane and threatening terms, that the quote be removed from the article entirely.
She said the following:
"If you don't change that, I swear to God, I will send out a press release about how you guys get shit wrong. That is bullshit. You have five minutes to call me back."
When we did not respond to Schroeder's threat, she sent out the press release late Thursday afternoon. In addition to her vaguely worded accusations against Elmahrek, Schroeder indicated that other Voice of OC reporters have acted unethically when reporting on issues involving the DA's office….
These accusations are entirely baseless and, regrettably, a tactic Schroeder has used against journalists dating back to the late 1990s when [OC DA Tony] Rackauckas first took office.
File photo of Schroeder: OC Weekly
