Claim: Edwards staff tried to kill story

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Oct. 26 (UPI) -- John Edwards' presidential campaign tried to get the University of North Carolina to drop a student story about its headquarters, a professor alleged.

Associate Professor C.A. Tuggle, a member of the journalism department, told The Raleigh News & Observer that two members of the Edwards campaign staff threatened to deny student reporters from the Chapel Hill campus access to the candidate. The campaign staffers were said to be upset about a video story for "Carolina Week," a weekly student newscast, that was also posted on YouTube.

"My gosh, what are they thinking?" Tuggle said he woundered. "They're spending this much time and effort on a student newscast that has about 2,000 viewers? They're turning a molehill into a mountain."

Carla Babb, the student reporter who put the segment together, started out documenting a student volunteer for Edwards, who represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate for one term. She changed her focus when she discovered the headquarters was in an upmarket shopping center.

The final piece included an interview with a columnist for the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, who saw the location of the headquarters as inconsistent with Edwards' campaign focus on helping low-income Americans.