Josh Bernstein is no longer an investigative reporter with KDVR FOX 31.
Bernstein’s brief tenure with the station included two investigative reports that brought heavy and pointed criticism from conservative and right-of-center circles.
In the first instance, a Bernstein report on potential abuse of funds by the Adams 12 school district brought heavy criticism from 850 KOA’s Mike Rosen, who said Bernstein’s report was one-sided and that the report “worked backwards.” We blogged on that issue back in February.
In the second instance, Bernstein went “undercover” to purchase a semi-automatic weapon in a “Baby’s R Us” parking lot. KHOW talk show host Michael Brown criticized the report, saying:
Why do you need to do a month-long investigation to do something which is perfectly legal, which is buying a gun from a private owner? I can only draw one conclusion: they were hoping to find a criminal to sell them a gun; or, were doing multiple “straw man” purchases like Gabby Giffords’ husband, Mark Kelly, infamously did and which was rescinded by the gun store.
I’ve put a call out to the KDVR news director asking whether Bernstein quit, or was fired. I’ll update if/when that information comes in.
UPDATE, June 5. KDVR news director Ed Kosowski called me yesterday, June 4, and said that Mr. Bernstein left “100%” of his own accord, and asked to be released from KDVR primarily because of family reasons. Without going into too much information here, I’ll just say that Mr. Kosowski’s explanation had a couple of nuggets of information which made clear Mr. Bernstein was indeed facing some serious family issues, and that “family issues” was not being used as a euphemism for any type of employer/employee disagreement.
