U.S. journalist victim of the very fraud he was investigating
It’s not every day that an investigative journalist finds out they have been unknowingly taken in by the very fraud they are probing. George Knapp found out mid-interview.
It’s not every day that an investigative journalist finds out they have been unknowingly taken in by the very fraud they are probing.
George Knapp, the lead investigative reporter for KLAN, the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, was interviewing Tisha Black, a foreclosure lawyer in Las Vegas, about the fraud that has resulted in corrupted chains of title on tens of thousands of homes in Las Vegas. During the interview, Black revealed to him that he had been a victim of foreclosure fraud himself. Despite playing by the rules, Knapp did not legally own the house he had bought three years ago in foreclosure from a bank.
The issue of shoddy paperwork that stemmed from — and has now exacerbated — the housing mess in the area is part of what KLAN was investigating in the first place in its Desert Underwater series.
Poynter explains this shocking example of a journalist quite literally ending up in his story.
