It's been a year since the Rev. Brent Dugan committed suicide after KDKA-TV aired a sweeps month promo that identified him by face, but not by name, and alleged he'd engaged in "public and illegal sexual behavior."

Now we're in November sweeps again, as viewers might have deduced from the increasingly shrill tone of station promos ("'Tis the season for purse snatchings, stolen cars and assaults," WPXI warned on Wednesday). At a panel discussion on TV news trends last week at Point Park University, regional news directors said the Dugan case had an impact on how they do their jobs.

"I don't know how it could not," said KDKA assistant news director Anne Linaberger, who oversaw the Dugan story. "Anytime something like this happens, it certainly causes you to evaluate what you do. ... Will we continue to do the kind of investigations that were to have resulted in this story? Absolutely, but we wouldn't be human beings if we didn't take a look at the way we did things and re-evaluate and take those things into consideration as we evaluate story pitches and stories that come our way."

Dugan, 60, had been the pastor at Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon for 18 years.

"I have opinions, strong opinions, on [KDKA's Dugan investigation], and I'm not going to state them publicly here," said WTAE news director Bob Longo, "but you'd be crazy as a news manager if you didn't look at that and learn something from it."

The Dugan story, by KDKA reporter Marty Griffin, never aired, but the station reported on its decision not to air the report, with Griffin saying he "uncovered illicit, possibly illegal, activity by a local minister, activities which, at the very least, violated the rules of his denomination."

Dugan left letters, including one to the Pittsburgh Presbytery, in which he wrote about his struggles with his sexuality and apologized for the shame he believed he brought on the church. The Post-Gazette's Ann Rodgers reported last December that Dugan wrote of a man he had become close with and sometimes met for sexual encounters and who encouraged Dugan to leave messages on his answering machine detailing sexual fantasies. Dugan said he was betrayed by the man, who arranged to meet Dugan at an adult bookstore where KDKA recorded their encounter.

While it's unfair to say, as some viewers have in the hundreds of e-mails I received last year, that KDKA is liable in Dugan's death, it is fair and reasonable to suggest that if not for KDKA's coverage, Dugan would probably still be alive. To those who knew him, he evinced no sign that he intended to do anything but go on living. He was about to move to California, having been called to serve a congregation in Mendocino.

The Rev. Carol Divens Roth, interim pastor at Community Presbyterian, said there was agreement about feelings toward KDKA among some members of the church's governing body.

"I told them I'm not going to speak for what the congregation has to say, but I think some of the members of our session feel like they can't trust television news, and it has to do with sweeps," said the Rev. Roth, wife of Post-Gazette staff writer Mark Roth. "Some people said they will always question what they hear because they don't know if it's designed to get ratings or if it really is news. I think most people here don't think [the Dugan story] rose to the level of news."

The question I hear most often about this case is why does KDKA continue to employ Griffin? My usual reaction is to point out that, in fairness, sometimes a producer can be as culpable for a story as a reporter; in this case, the question has validity.

Last November, in the wake of the Dugan suicide, KDKA sent Griffin out to do a couple of pro-church stories, including one that led viewers to believe St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland had been the site of a series of recent burglaries. The Rev. Thomas Burke outlined a litany of inaccuracies in Griffin's report. Griffin did not respond to queries about the St. Paul report last year, and he did not return a call earlier this week seeking comment on his coverage of Dugan.

"Opinions about Marty Griffin, among those people who have expressed opinions, I've not heard any softening toward him," the Rev. Roth said. KDKA general manager Chris Pike said the station would have no comment on the Dugan case beyond a statement issued last year that expressed condolences to the pastor's family and friends.

Another criticism I've heard from viewers about the Dugan coverage was Griffin's seeming role as judge and jury. If KDKA thought Dugan was engaging in activities that harmed others -- no reports of any victims ever came to light -- why not involve the authorities rather than waiting until sweeps to air the report?

KDKA's Linaberger, who noted she's a Presbyterian, said she was asked about the station's role as a de facto sheriff in the Dugan case when speaking recently at a Presbyterian church.

"A similar question came up, and my answer is that we are journalists. It's not our job to do the job of the police. Of course if we thought someone was in imminent danger of bodily harm," Linaberger said, the station would have a discussion about alerting authorities. "It's our job to gather facts, gather information and put together the most accurate reports we possibly can. If something results from our reports, that's somewhat out of our control."

That's true, but it's also why it's imperative for a news outlet to have allegations backed up by facts that rise to a level that merits coverage. Did KDKA have a story that was truly newsworthy or was the station just snooping around in a man's messy private life? Without seeing the report, we'll never know conclusively, but the lack of any independent proof is deeply troubling.

WTAE's Longo brought up what may have been KDKA's true Achilles heel in the Dugan case: airing a sensational promo that included his image.

"In any kind of investigative piece or edgy piece, it's often not the story itself that causes harm, mistrust or damage, it's the promotions of that piece," he said. "The news organization has to keep the promotions department close. ... You have to have oversight over that because at the end of the day it's your credibility, and you're nothing without your credibility."

Despite what many judge to be serious lapses in journalistic judgment on the part of KDKA, the station has not taken a ratings hit because of its role in the Dugan story.

In the October sweeps ratings released yesterday, KDKA repeated its July sweeps household ratings wins, ranking in first place with its noon, 4, 5, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts.

At last week's TV news panel, Pamela Dennis, news director of Johnstown station WJAC, offered the most resonant comment on lessons to be learned from the Dugan case.

"Being from a smaller market ... a lot of my staffers are beginning journalists fresh out of college. They're very green. My job is to train them so one day they can work for WPXI or KDKA or WTAE," she said. "One of the things I bring up to my staff is just because you can doesn't mean you should. We have that conversation quite a bit. ... I used [the Dugan case] as a learning tool for our younger producers and reporters to get them thinking. Would we have done anything different? Would we have done it in the exact same way they did it? We use that as a way to teach and hopefully make a better journalist in the future."

TV Q&A

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about the new fall season, FiOS TV and DVRs. Read it online at post-gazette.com/tv.