Citizens' Voice from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania • A7

WB VOICE CVDAILY 1 WB VOICE 07 9 23 3 9 OCAL EWS Luzerne County Sheriff Barry Stankus and the county commissioners want to thank local teens for their participation in a crackdown on underage tobacco use. The event, which included awards and a pizza party, took place Wednesday inside the courthouse Rotunda. Operation FIST recruits more than 100 local teens as undercover agents attempting to buy cigarettes from area retailers. The goal is to see if the retailers are following the law. State law requires that photo identification be checked if the customers look like they are underage.

KRISTEN MULLEN THE VOICE Kendall Concini receives an award from Luzerne County Sheriff Barry Stankus. Teens cited for service WYOU anchor Andrews off the air until he decides about election By Borys Krawczeniuk taffWriter Viewers might have seen the last of Frank Andrews as a local television news anchor for awhile. WYOU-TV station officials put Andrews on paid leave Thursday until he decides whether he will run for state representative. Andrews, who has been in local broadcasting for 35 years filed nomination papers Tuesday to run for the 113th Legislative District seat He said he must also give up his duties as the news director and host the airing Saturday of the St. Day Parade in Scranton.

The station also removed his image from promotions tools, he said. The longtime local broadcaster said he supported the decision, but had expected to remain on the air until he actually decided to run and the state certified the election ballot late this month. He had only one regret, he said. wish I had a chance to say said Andrews, who filed to run under the name, Frank Andrews Shimkus, a combination of his on-air and real last names. If Andrews runs, resign, he said.

If he assuming resume his anchor and news director duties. He had anchored news all but a year since joining the station in April 2000, he said. Previously, he had been on the air as a reporter and anchor at WNEP-TV, starting in 1980. He spent nine years in local radio before that. Eric Deabill anchored the 5 p.m.

newscast and announced the decision midway through, reading a statement from John Dittmeier, the vice president and general manager of Nexstar Broadcasting. Nexstar contracts with Mission Broadcasting, owner, to provide a newscast for the station, Andrews said, but news staff work for Nexstar. decision to provide Frank with a paid leave of absence in no way reflects upon his performance or is a punitive Dittmeier wrote in the statement. move (ensures) that WYOU remains impartial in the election process supporting a fair and balanced entry of all candidates into this Efforts to reach Dittmeier were unsuccessful. Andrews is one of six Democratic candidates who filed nominating petitions for the seat, which is becoming vacant because longtime state Rep.

Gaynor Cawley, D-Scranton, is retiring. Scranton City Councilwoman Janet Evans, City Councilman Bill Courtright, Tax Collector Ken McDowell, former City Councilman Kevin Murphy and attorney John are the other Democrats in the race. Republicans Jim Williams and Matthew Burke are also seeking the seat. The deadline for withdrawing from the race is March 22. Andrews said Dittmeier told him about an hour before the 5 p.m.

newscast that company higher-ups required his immediate removal from the air because another candidate complained about his staying on the air. He said neither he nor Dittmeier knows who complained. Evans, Williams and Burke said they had not complained. Efforts to reach the others were unsuccessful. Andrews said he and Dittmeier wrote the on-air statement together.

They agreed Andrews would have to resign from the station if he decides to run, something Andrews said he knew all along. He has been contemplating running for the office for more than a month. He said his comfort with the decision to remove him makes it likelier he will run. A journalism ethics expert said the station should have relieved Andrews of his duties when it first became evident that he was considering running because of the potential public perception that his politics was influencing news coverage. should be guided as journalists by the principle of said Bob Steele, a former television news reporter and now senior ethics faculty for the Poynter Institute, a St.

Petersburg, based journalism think tank. should not allow our own self-interest real or perceived, to undermine the work we produce. exceptionally difficult, probably impossible, for a television anchor to retain credibility in reporting on any government issue or political issue when running for Andrews said he believe he has compromised his or the independence or integrity, because the station covered the race. He had asked a veteran station reporter and another news show producer to evaluate the newsworthiness of any stories related to politics, he said. The Wilkes-Barre man accused of shooting a woman and into a occupied house Feb.

28 had his case sent to county court Thursday. Darrin M. Battle, 19, was charged after police say he shot a woman in the leg because she refused to drive him away from the scene of a separate shooting on Hutson Street, according to the police criminal complaint. A second man in the car, known as ran off the with gun, according to the criminal complaint. Battle confessed to police in writing that he accidentally shot Harrison, but then ripped up the confession and flushed it down the toilet, according to the criminal complaint.

Battle is charged with two felony charges and related misdemeanors. He is being held in the Luzerne County Correctional Facility in lieu of $60,000 straight bail. Charges against alleged shooter sent to court He is contemplating run for state seat HE ECISION TO ROVI A NK ITH A PA I LE A VEO AB SENCEINNO WAY RE LECTS ONHIS ER ORM A NCE ORIS AP UNITIVE A CTION OHN ITTMEIER ST A FORT FORTCAMPUS 1 66 lo rty rt 5 70 2 88.84 00 www a llied hed.ed Ta ke he ime a in AN Ca ee I a ca NOW id I Sc hool i emen igh ooking AN Ca ee a ss a rt ing oon! I I A A I I A A IT SNOTTOOLATE yt ime a ss A a il ab le in a i a A id ho ho a lif ac emen A ss i st a pon cc ss omple ion THECITIZENS 1 0 2006 7.