KGO-AM 810 was tipped off by an anonymous source that former host Bernie Ward would be changing his child porn plea to guilty, but sat on the story, General Manager Mickey Luckoff tells the Chron’s Joe Garofoli. Luckoff said that their source gave them the information on the condition that they not air the news until the plea was actually changed. However, after the Chron reported on its Website Tuesday night that Ward would change his plea, KGO followed suit.

Meanwhile, hosts on KGO are now talking about the Ward case after going silent after he was charged in December.

[Ronn Owens] told his audience Thursday that he has been hearing from listeners that they’d like to talk about Ward, pro and con, and wondered how KGO could call itself a news-talk station and not talk about a prominent local story. So on Thursday, Owens devoted the first hour of his program for a listener venting of all things Ward.

Owens began by reading the emancipatory e-mail from Jack Swanson, the station’s operations director. “I thank you for your understanding over the past few months in avoiding this topic,” read Swanson’s email. “There is no longer any reason to restrict discussion on the matter and you are free to use your usual good judgement in discussing this topic as you would any other.”