Voice of OC Gives Credit Where Credit is Due for Breaking Mike Carona Pension Story

​We told you here how the Los Angeles Times reported on the $215,000 annual pension for disgraced ex-Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona nine days after the Orange County Register did, without crediting the Santa Ana daily for first breaking the news.

Now the Register is being accused of doing the same thing to a third media outlet--with the same pension story.

Photo by Jonathan Ho

Nick Berardino (left), general manager of the Orange County Employees Association, which is the main backer of the Voice of OC headed up by Norberto Santana, Jr.

​"Just for the record, Voice of OC actually beat the OC Register on the OCERS pension release data by just about a full day," Norberto Santana Jr. informs via email.

Santana heads up the Voice of OC, a nonprofit journalism site whose main financial backer is the Orange County Employees Association (OCEA). Our Spencer Kornhaber wrote about Santana and Voice of OC here.

Himself a former Register staffer, Santana explains the retirement system released the data on top county pensions, including Carona's, the afternoon of June 30, and Voice of OC had its first story up by 8 that same night.

"The Register followed with a blog post the next day, July 1, at 1:25 pm on the OC Watchdog section," Santana continues. "They apparently decided not to mention the Voice of OC report."

He added the Voice of OC published six additional stories based on the pension data before the Register came back with a bigger piece on the data July 9, which coincided with the first LA Times story on the subject (which also did not credit Voice of OC).

Voice of OC also had a post up on the data July 9, which you can see here. Santana's version linked to the reports in both dailies.