A veteran Minnesota news reporter abruptly resigned after she accused her station of spiking a story she had written about her co-worker’s alleged sexual misconduct.
Reporter Marianne Combs said she spent two and a half months investigating allegations made about a DJ at her Minnesota Public Radio sister station, 89.3 The Current.
Combs said she communicated with eight women all claiming that DJ Eric Malmberg sexually manipulated and psychologically abused them.
The story was first reported by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Combs wrote on Monday that the women encountered Malmberg while he worked at other stations including the Cumulus Media combo of Classic Rock 92.5 KQRS and Rock “93X” KXXR.
“I also interviewed the directors of a summer church camp who told this DJ he was no longer welcome to volunteer there because of his inappropriate behavior with teenage girls,” Combs wrote in a Facebook post.” I found out that in June he was fired from another job where he worked with children; that organization is now conducting an investigation into his time there.”
Combs said she wrote a draft and presented it to legal counsel for review and that the story was determined to be well-sourced.
“My editors have failed to move forward on the story. They have countered that the DJ’s actions were, for the most part, legal, and therefore don’t rise to the level of warranting news coverage,” Combs said.
Combs won an award in June for her reporting on sex abuse cases at Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis.
Minnesota Public Radio publicly fired Malmberg Tuesday reversing earlier support.
“MPR has made the decision that the audience of The Current is best served by a programmatic change,” the release stated. “As a result, Eric Malmberg will no longer be a DJ on The Current. Our hosts have to be able to attract an audience that wants to listen to them and trusts them and over the last 36 hours those conditions have changed for Malmberg.”
Meantime Combs said she her resignation will serve as a “catalyst for positive change.”
Minnesota Public Radio said they were “blindsided” by Combs’ resignation.
