Lopez blasts KVOA for misleading report

Douglas High School Principal Bonnie Lopez criticized KVOA for its use of Douglas High School as a backdrop for a story on smuggling.

Lopez spoke during the Call to the Public section of the regular board meeting on November 3.

The piece, which also featured shots of DHS students and an interview with Superintendent Earl Pettit, was run by the Tucson station on Monday, November 2.

“It is not easy to be responsible for 1,400 students.  It is a big job in many respects filled with countless challenges on a daily basis,” she said.

“What is easy is to stand here and rectify a misrepresentation of facts that unfairly targeted my students.

“ Last night KVOA Channel 4 aired a story titled “Smuggling Teens”.  The story was based on teens that had been caught and arrested smuggling drugs.  As the reporter filmed her story she did so using Douglas High School as a backdrop, and taped our students leaving campus.  Let me set the record straight, the teens arrested were not Douglas High School students.  I stand here because this story was unfair to the hundreds of DHS students who are doing their best – from the cover of the sports section in the Daily Star, to those who give countless hours on weekends to help at the orphanage in Agua Prieta, to the students who have made our Drop Out Prevention Program worthy of receiving a state award as exemplary. 

“It is for them, my teachers, and our parents that I stand here, I could not do otherwise, and while we are not perfect – we do believe in the pride that many before who walked the halls of DHS left as their legacy.

“I am Bonnier Lopez Principal of DHS and although KVOA claims their mantra is to report “Fair and Balanced news” sadly it was not the case this time.”