WUNC-TV

Hat tip to Kelly McCullen and WUNC-TV.

If you pay the piper, will he play your favorite tunes?

Former House Speaker Richard Morgan, who works for the N.C. Water Rights Committee, gave $3,000 to Martin Sansone, a long-time friend of Eszter Vajda, the UNC-TV correspondent who reported stories about Alcoa that aired last month.

Morgan said Vajda and Sansone, a citizen of Great Britain, solicited the money during a meeting with him and several others connected to the water rights committee. "They both met with me and others and essentially pitched us for subsistence so he could stay here," Morgan said. "He couldn't afford to stay otherwise."

This raises several questions, not the least of which is: How often does this "private subsidization" of in-depth media reports happen?

And it hasn't even been aired yet:

The subject of the documentary is Alcoa, which is seeking renewal of its federal license to operate hydroelectric generating stations on the Yadkin River. The Perdue administration has opposed the license renewal before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and wants the legislature to pass a bill that would create a way for the state to purchase the hydro plants.

This raises all kinds of questions about the relationship between branches of the government -- in this case, legislative versus executive, in that UNC-TV is an agency overseen by the UNC Board of Governors. And it also involves the power of the state versus the academy.