THE ROCOCO MEDIA BAILS… AGAIN…
April 14th, 2009James Renner writes:
Since last November, I have been working on a story about state senator Kevin Coughlin, who is now running for governor. When Coughlin learned of the story, he threatened several of my sources-some with violence-and then had his lawyer send Scene”s management a number of letters threatening lawsuits. In February, I took part in a conference call during which I was asked to confirm an affair. I confirmed the affair but the story was still spiked.
As Scene has had a long history of publishing similar stories, I believe this story was spiked solely because Coughlin threatened to sue. I was told we “cannot afford a lawsuit right now”.
I certainly hope it is not because Coughlin is a Republican, because we recently published cover stories on democrats including Marc Dann and Bill Mason, which were just as hard-hitting.
I want to be clear that Scene”s editor Frank Lewis and Publisher Matt Fabyan tried very hard over the past few days to save my job. This was not their decision. [Times Shammrock CEO Matt] Haggerty was unrelenting. “It”s a bell that cannot be unrung” he said. It”s a shame we did not know Times Shamrock lacked courage before Fabyan brought them in on the merger. I fear for the future of that paper.
You can read the story Times Shamrock CEO Matt Haggerty was afraid to publish at Blogger Interrupted.
James Renner’s comments above are 100% false.
Shalom Jesse,
First, thank you for stopping in, for reading and, most importantly, for taking the time to share your comment. Building community is all about our conversations.
Second, who are you and what is your dog in this hunt?
Third, what is the evidence that you have to support your assertion?
B’shalom,
Jeff