MSM=Mainstream media.   Thanks for calling this to everyone's attention.

Haven't seen you in a while - is Scene the gig you were writing about on your blog? Best you found out when you did... very sorry for James and his family! I will certainly miss his writing... I hope he isn't going anywhere!

Citizen Dashboard is what I was talking about. We should get together and I'll bring you up to speed... I need to introduce you to somepne.

Love the Tea Party video... keep them coming

Disrupt IT

I know James Renner very well and I know he is a first rate investigative reporter. Scene was lucky to have him for as long as they did. He doesn't need Scene -- maybe Cleveland doesn't either.

  We will lose him to a real town, no doubt.  I am and will continue to be grateful for the fact that James Renner did not allow fear to dictate his questioning of our political representatives.  He did not pillow his questions on the Democrats in NEO, either, and I am sure that his firing is not just about pissing off a Republican gubernatorial candidate.
 

I have a different take on this.    You would too if you sat in the seat of the guy signing the paychecks and paying the bills.   So, while you read this, transition to the seat of Mr. Renner's boss, at a small local newspaper (not the New York Times).

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You have a reporter who has a story he wants to print in your paper.   But you know that the story will immediately result in a law suit.   You'll have to hire counsel.   You don't have the money to spend on counsel, or you have better things to do with the money like pay your employees.   The timing isn't good.   This one story and the costs of defending it will kill your business. There are other ways of getting the truth out about the matter and there is no urgency.

The reporter continues to insist that his work be published.   The reporter won't take no for an answer.

So you dismiss the reporter.  

The reporter then promptly gets his story out on the internet anyway. 

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Back to you, the reader:

You think the reporter will prevail in an employee unfair firing claim?

Would you print the story and lose your business?  How is that serving your citizens?  Stand tall and lose it all!   Brilliant strategy....

...what is the story on Coughlin?

Where does it break loose? Who, what, where, when, why, how? Enquiring minds need to know.

I see now, having visited TR's blog, what the story about Coughlin is, or was to be. As a red-blooded American voyeur, I was hoping for something more lurid.

I appreciate Jeff's comment with the editor's side of the story. So it sounds like the potential law suit is the main conflict here. What is the basis of the law suit Coughlin would file? 

I don't know the full story that Renner wanted write but, assuming it was true and news worthy there should be some way to protect the paper. Is there a journalism law expert in Realneo?

You give me a purse for legal action, and with  creativity and imagination and know how, We will smother any adversarial business in court.  Right or Wrong.   Try us.  (but we need the moneY) or at least a lot of volunteer legal time!  It's the American Way!  It's just a golf game....fore!