Orlando

If THAT's what you are referencing.... you are proving my point. What moddy relayed was a question... you turned it into a charge. Again, nice job ignoring the key part of what we actually KNOW about Elling's departure: Conflict of interest.

I'll repeat:


"The lengths people here.... VERY intelligent people... will go to be apologists for one of their own (when they sure as fuck wouldn't do such a thing for an athlete) is.... unnerving."

 

And I'll repeat myself, since you were as oblivious as the Sentinel is not filling Steve's spot...

Dave Hyde wrote a story for the Super Bowl program. The NFL played this rather big game in Dave's backyard a few weeks ago that Dave's paper covered. Perhaps you heard about it.

Oh yeah. Dave Hyde works for a Tribune paper.

What is the difference between what he did and what Steve did?

I'll hang up now...

 

The Super Bowl program is not in competition with the S-S, or a conflict of interest.

At least not to the Editor of the Sun-Sentinel, who was surely consulted on the matter.

You are trying, best you can, to sweep the COI issue into the corner.

And, you are commenting with certitude that you know the real story of what happened to Elling.

If you think that what Elling wrote here is the whole truth in the matter... man, am I disappointed in you.

 

I don't know, Birdscribe. Maybe Hyde got the bosses to sign off on it first. Maybe he went through the proper channels.

That said, I'm a big fan of Elling's. I think he got screwed. Unfortunately for him, that abrasive personality of his that I happen to love came back and bit him. They found a loophole to get him, and they got him.

And that's a damn shame.

 

Look, I'm not interested in seeing this thing grow even larger than it has. But lets not compare someone doing a story for an NFL program to what Elling did.

I don't know the details, but, as I've pointed out in past posts, Elling wrote Sentinel columns about Ginn, or at least one that was printed just about the time that he was sent packing. If you haven't bothered to read that column, which can be Googled quite easily, you really should take a look.

The column is flattering when it comes to Steve's thoughts on Ginn. If he's also receiving pay for work he does for Ginn or some related company, there is the question of whether his freelance work is tainting his objectivity. Maybe it's not. But I have an inkling the Sentinel thought otherwise. And lets not forget that another publication's editor had put the screws to the paper over the matter.

Perhaps Steve had prior permission, but things changed. I think a lot of folks would agree that he got a raw deal at the end of the day, but it's not as though he wasn't complicit in some of this. Surely, any journalist would recognize the conflict in freelancing for a company and then writing a glowing column about that company's new golf course. In my opinion, he would have had better footing had it not been for his column.

 

... which McKenzie would NEVER have agreed to.

 

You so want it to be undeserved.

 

Agree completely. To be fired over freelancing, it should be something where the person was previously warned about not doing something and did it anyway.

I also know of one guy who was fired several years ago because he was writing for his own paper and then re-writing the same story for AP. He received no byline, so he got away with it for a couple years and since it was a relatively small college it went unnoticed.

 

They used it as an excuse to can him, and that's just wrong.

So wait, is Orlando going without a full-time golf writer now? That's amazing considering the level of interest in golf in Florida... A lot of papers don't need a full-time golf writer, Orlando does...

 

So according to threads on the board, Orlando is putting Jemele Hill's columnist job on hold, and not filling Elling's golf position. Is that correct? Makes me wonder, did Orlando avoid some of the worst of Tribune cutbacks because of McKenzie? Now that he's gone, is this a sign that Hoppes' doesn't have nearly the same pull? It will be interesting to watch what happens to what has been one of the better sections in the country.