Vicky Nguyen KRON 4 NBC News Bay Area’s Reporter Accused Of Bugging Teen Girl Students For Story

Vicky Nguyen KRON 4 NBC News Bay Area’s Reporter’s alleged to have gone too far in covering the story-of-the moment:

Stories of sexual misconduct are rampant of late, and for good reason: media economics. Online search for content under the term “sexual harassment” are at the highest level ever for that topic in the history of Google Trends.

What that translates to is local news outlets trying to jump on the gossip gravy train and immitating the worst of the National Enquirer in the process: stories about sexual harassment that are not backed by fact but only by innuendo, all the time taking a huge risk of earning a defamation of character lawsuit based on psychological harm. But it’s done all for advertising revenues from ads like the ones that appear on the Vicky Nguyen – KRON 4 News pages associated with the story.

What Vicky Nguyen is accused of doing is going on Twitter in pursuit of comments by teenage girls at Presentation High School, what’s called a “private, Catholic, college preparatory school for girls established in 1962”, and located in Mountain View, Ca. It all started when Kathryn Leehane, a former student, published an essay in The Washington Post reporting her frustration after telling teachers and police in 1990 of an alleged sexual misconduct act done to her and to another female student by an instructor who was not named, and who has since died.

That opinion piece was seen by many students and parents at the same Presentation High School caused two other current students to step forward with a new series of reports – one that the San Jose Mercury News writes was serious enough to call police.

Two Presentation High School teachers were put on paid administrative leave.

As happens quite commonly today with this kind of story and social media, rumor ran far head of facts. Parents called for an investigation and launched an online petition, and out of that came a new round of unfounded accuations. And KRON 4’s Vicky Nguyen.

Trying to get their piece of the story, KRON dispatched Vicky Nguyen to work, and just that she did: first locating, then cyber searching, then tweeting out to contact already scared and confused teenage female students at Presentation High School. Why? Ms. Nguyen, undoubtedly encouraged if not directed by her assignment desk editors, wanted to interview them – many claim without Ms. Nguyen seeking parental consent.

In addition, Ms. Nguyen showed up at the school search of the teenage female students, and also teachers, to interview – on camera and without parents present. Moreover, KRON’s reporting worked to point an accusatory finger at Presentation High School’s Principal Mary Miller. That prompted this email from Ms. Miller to parents and students of her school:

Dear Parents and Students,

I want to bring to your attention to a matter we find improper and disturbing. Within the last 24 hours, Vicky Nguyen (a reporter from NBC Bay Area News) direct messaged at least one of our students asking to speak to them off the record and does not indicate what she would like to discuss. This reporter has also begun following Presentation students on Twitter. We consider this action incredibly unethical and against journalistic integrity and acceptable code of conduct. Attempting to contact minors for interviews without parental consent displays a lack of good judgement and crosses obvious boundaries.

Of course, students are free to speak with the reporter. Parents, we thought you should know what is occurring. We intend to reach out to NBC with a formal complaint. If you find this behavior unacceptable, I encourage you to do the same.

Sincerely,

Mary Miller
Principal

PRESENTATION HIGH SCHOOL
2281 Plummer Avenue • San Jose, CA 95125 • (408) 264-1664

Ms. Nguyen posted this response on her Facebook page:

“Let me address the email below (above here) from Presentation High School principal Mary Miller. She sent it today to the Presentation community in response to our recent reporting about sexual abuse allegations against former teachers at the school. On Friday, the school placed two current teachers on administrative leave. San Jose police are currently investigating. We reached out via Twitter to the public accounts of students who posted or “liked” a link to our original report http://bit.ly/2zBv6r0. We asked to speak off the record so students would know it is safe to share information without having their name used for attribution. We don’t want students to be retaliated against for voicing their concerns, experiences, or opinions. Any students who have been in contact with us know that we immediately tell them we need to speak with their parents before we ask any questions or use their comments. The school’s PR director witnessed this herself last Monday Nov 6 when we were in front of the PHS campus speaking with students and parents. That is the only time I’ve been to the campus. My colleague Ian Cull was there Friday when the news broke that the school put two teachers on leave. We are parents ourselves, and we take our integrity and ethical reporting obligations seriously. We encourage you to reach out with questions. Transparency is important in our reporting and we have nothing to hide.”

I think Ms. Nguyen misses the point: neither she nor KRON are police investigators: they don’t have official sanction to go about information gathering as if they’re wearing a badge, and law enforcement has not been working in partnership with the TV station – and, indeed, would not do so.

While the situation is horrible, what Ms. Nguyen and KRON did was fan the flames of rumor and gossip via its giant television broadcast reach, upset current students, parents, and alumni of Presentation High School Worldwide, and became the story in the process: a clear no-no with this kind of reporting.

The normal process is for tbe media to wait until law enforcement and the courts do get involved, make their process and actions public and available to be reported on, then report on the story from that perspective.

In trying to be a vigilante character attacker, rather than a reporter, Ms. Nguyen is alleged to have hurt the feelings and damaged the psyche of a giant number of people – perhaps forever.
I can only hope she sees the error in her ways and issues and appology to Presentation High School. But from the looks of her social media posts, that’s not happening.

Stay tuned.