Steve McCoy admits he 'recycled' old Trump interview

"We are still investigating," said Cumulus Atlanta market manager Sean Shannon in an interview. "Until we have completed that investigation, Steve will not be on the air."

The original interview McCoy used appears to be several years old, likely from his days at Steve & Vikki on Star 94. Topics included Trump's wealth, his likability and whether he had any real estate holdings in Atlanta. Trump also addressed the issue of a prenuptual agreement.  His third and most recent marriage happened in 2005.

McCoy conjured up a question in the interview to make it seem new by "asking" Trump if he was going to watch the Democratic debate that evening. In the doctored audio, Trump supposedly answered "no."

He explained to Buzzfeed that he had an interview set up for Trump in the first place but it fell through. Rather than just let it go, he carted out the old one.

“I had an interview scheduled but it didn’t come through so I used an old interview," he said to the Buzzfeed reporter. "I got suspended and I’m taking my punishment."

McCoy also raised the hackles of Trump's people when he blamed them for limiting his ability to ask policy questions. A Trump attorney said McCoy never spoke with Trump on Tuesday at all, which ended up being true.

Keith Herndon, a visiting professor at the Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication, teaches journalism ethics and is familiar with McCoy's work as a morning host on stations such as Power 99, Star 94 and B98.5 from the 1980s through 2010. McCoy came back on radio when NewsRadio 106.7 hired him as a morning co-host in March.

"We have to understand Steve McCoy is not a journalist," Herndon said. "He is an on-air personality primarily involved in entertainment. But he is now on a news station. And whether he's a journalist or not, he crossed the line by lying to his audience."

Dan Blankowski, a former traffic reporter at Star when McCoy was there, said the whole thing sounds befuddling: "I can't explain that one at all. If he wanted to do something funny and take the old interview and turn it into a farce, that might have been better."

Gary McKee, a former popular Atlanta radio host best known for his time at 790/WQXI-AM in the 1970s and 1980s, wasn't so perturbed.

"Mr. McCoy's a great guy, standup, a seasoned vet and an entertainer NOT a newsnose," he wrote in an email. "There's no Pulitzer at stake, here. He was hired to entertain and to increase audience share and that's exactly what he's trying to do. If this isn't a publicity canard, it's not an issue."

"Trump, rightfully so, is the biggest story of the biggest election since before the millennium and a talent like Steve naturally was disappointed that Trump failed to show," McKee said. "Hell yeah, I would have done the same but I never saved anything. Run it and gun it. Reading your blog, it's clear Steve has sincerely recanted and accepted his punishment. If he's blown out over THIS event there's an accomplished bozo somewhere in McCoy's management chain."

McCoy was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame in 2009 with Vikki Locke.