“I had tickets to the Hornets that night. And I got a call from a source and they said, I don't know how you're going to prove this, but there's some sketchy stuff going on in Bladen County...We were just kind of fishing. We were hoping that we would catch something. And we did.”— Joe Bruno, Political Reporter, WSOC-TV Charlotte 

Local reporters Joe Bruno and Michael Stolp of WSOC in Charlotte, North Carolina discuss their duPont Award winning reporting “Something Suspicious in District 9.”  A tip about possible election tampering in nearby Bladen County sent them hours out of their beat, knocking on doors, to discover highly suspect political operatives had been collecting mail-in ballots. As a result of their reporting the North Carolina State Board of Elections wouldn’t certify the election results and, in a unanimous decision, called for a new election. Their ongoing scoops broke what became a huge national story, which was even cited in a recent New York Times story about the rarity of mail-in fraud. 

Bruno and Stolp talk about how Bruno’s daily work on the local politics beat aided him in this investigative story, the challenges of knocking on strangers’ doors, and the value of basic shoe leather reporting. They also discuss how Bladen County’s status as a news desert made the kind of political shenanigans they uncovered possible. 

The 2020 duPont-Columbia Award ceremony, at which Bruno and WSOC were honored, took place on January 21st. Go to www.duPont.org to watch the full program. Check our FB page facebook.com/duPontColumbiaAwards. 
Follow @JoeBrunoWSOC9 as he tracks COVID and other news in N. Carolina.