Helling – who joined KCTV in 1999 following a six-year tenure as weekend evening anchor and reporter at WDAF-TV – was the partial subject of a March 2005 column in the "Columbia Journalism Review", which chastised KCTV for a report that aired in December 2004 about the lax regulations that could allow consumers to purchase ammonium nitrate – a product used in making homemade improvised explosive devices – in violation of a law passed by the Kansas State Legislature after the 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City that prohibit the packaged sale of the substance. For the investigative report, Helling went to seven Kansas City-area farmers' supply stores attempting to buy large quantities of ammonium nitrate and insinuated that he was able to purchase twelve 40-pound bags of that fertilizer's pure form (totaling ) from Tonganoxie, Kansas-based McGraw's Fertilizer without further vetting; however, a "Tonganoxie Mirror" investigation uncovered that he had actually bought 20-10-10, a far less dangerous, commonly sold type of fertilizer named for the respective percentages of ammonium nitrogen (at levels significantly lower than the 70% needed to be considered of the pure form), phosphorus and potash in the blend. Although the controversy did generate local backlash, it is unclear whether Helling or KCTV station management had ever issued a correction to the story and/or an apology to the store owner.