All In Good Fun

By Kleinheider Posted on July 23, 2008 at 7:04 am

Investigative reporter Phil Williams has more shenanigans from a weeklong training session for employees of the state’s Department of Revenue:

Then, there’s video that shows revenue staffers dancing at what appears to be a funeral.

“We apparently have a dead taxpayer and a grieving widow — and these people dancing around to a 50 Cent song,” Johnson observes.

“Go. Go. Go, money.
It’s your tax day.
We’re gonna party.
Like it your tax day.”

“Is this what the department of revenue thinks of us, the taxpayers?” Johnson asks. “We die and maybe they should audit our family and see if they can get more money?”

Commissioner Farr says, “I think most of this was done in fairly good fun.”

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Tags: Department of Revenue, Drew Johnson, Phil Williams, Reagan Farr  

TV News Challenges Gag Order

By Kleinheider Posted on July 5, 2008 at 11:47 pm

Tom Wood breaks the story of Newschannel 5’s constitutional challenge to a gag order issued to witnesses testifying in the John Ford trial. One of the those witnesses happens to be investigative reporter Phil Williams:

The TV station and Williams filed suit late Thursday in federal court, raising a constitutional objection to the gag order. “To the extent that the court’s order restricts Mr, Williams and/or NewsChannel 5 from reporting on this trial, it is a ‘prior restraint’ of the free speech and free press that is impermissible under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” they charged.

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Tags: gag order, John Ford, NewsChannel5, Phil Williams