Andrea McCarren (credit: CBS News)
WASHINGTON (CBS DC) — A CBS news reporter whose on-air coverage of teenage drinking led to threats against her children, a backlash across social media and her brief leave from reporting is now back at work and speaking out about the alcohol problem affecting Washington DC’s community.
Andrea McCarren, a reporter for WUSA-TV since 1991, investigated a report from a local parent that a store in northwest Washington DC was allegedly selling liquor to teenagers below the legal buying age.
“We watched and videotaped dozens of teenagers buying alcohol at Town Square Market in northwest Washington without being asked for identification,” reported McCarren in the story that was broadcast on Feb. 2.
Following the story, teens flooded the station’s Facebook page with angry messages such as “…you’re now the most hated woman in the dc (sic) metro area.” A follow-up report by McCarren about a police raid on an underage drinking party brought out further anger on social media against the reporter. In addition, parents of teens being arrested by police at the scene became upset with WUSA-TV’s coverage and questioned police as to why law enforcement was granting video access to the raid.
After her children were threatened at school, McCarren took herself off the air and reporter Derek McGinty continued the series of reports on the issue. McCarren said parents at the scene of the police raid also threatened to sue police and WUSA-TV.
In an interview Thursday on CBS This Morning, McCarren spoke about the backlash and its affect on her three children.
“At first I was frightened and then I became angry,” said McCarren. “It felt like an orchestrated Facebook and Twitter campaign of hate. People put my home address on the internet. There were calls for revenge and retaliation against my family. I’m now in about my 27th year as a reporter and I have never seen anything like this.”
WUSA-TV said 99 percent of the feedback they had received from the public had been positive about their investigation, and supportive comments on the station’s Facebook page have been growing.
“Shame on the parents for being angry because their child was caught drinking under age,” posted one user. “One parent actually said, why didn’t you run. We ask why this generation has less morals and respect.”
McCarren told CBS News she has vowed to continue her stories around the topic.
“Personally as a reporter, I felt like I could not cover one more carload of drunk kids wrapped around a tree and interview one more set of grieving parents without trying to do something with this extraordinary reach of the media to affect positive change,” she said.
There was no word about if McCarren’s children with husband Bill McCarren, executive director of the National Press Club, had returned to school.
