Tag Results for Hartford Courant

The Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest newspaper, is being sued by the Journal Inquirer of Manchester for plagiarizing 11 stories and publishing them under Courant reporter bylines.

Expect the flap over the departure/firing of Hartford Courtant consumer reporter George Gombossy to get uglier in the near future, if interviews with Gombossy and one of his former editors are any sort of indicator.

As we posted yesterday, Gombossy claims he was fired for writing a column about a major Courant advertiser, the furniture chain Sleepy's, which is under investigation by the Connecticut Attorney General's Office for allegedly selling used mattresses and box springs as new. The column was held, but Gombossy posted a version of it on his new blog.

In response, the Courant sent a memo to news staffers, claiming Gombossy wasn't fired, but that his position was eliminated to make way for a new hybrid print-broadcast consumer reporter position to take advantage of the recent newsroom merger between the Courant and Fox-61, which are both owned by the Tribune Company.

In an interview, Courant senior vice president and director of content Jeff Levine elaborated on Gombossy's departing, insisting that it was "not related to the (Sleepy's) story."

Levine confirmed that the Sleepy's column was held, because editors "felt it needed some additions." He did not say what the additions would have been, but he said Gombossy declined a chance to rewrite the column before he left. Levine said the Sleepy's column has since been assigned to another reporter, but that there is "no timetable" for it to be published.

Levine said Gombossy was told that his position was being eliminated to make way for a consumer reporter position with "more multimedia elements" and that Gombossy was "uninterested" in the new job. I asked Levine if Gombossy, a 40-year veteran of the Courant, was offered another position at the paper and he replied: "He was not."

A short while later, I spoke to Gombossy on the phone, and he told a much different story. He said he had been getting pressure for months to back off on consumer-protection columns that mentioned prominent Courant advertisers, with Levine functioning as a de-facto gatekeeper for negative stories. He writes more about the subject on his blog today.

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UPDATE:

The Hartford Courant still hasn't called me back, but Romenesko has posted a memo from Editor Naedine Hazell to the paper's news staff denying that consumer reporter George Gombossy's departure had anything to do with his column about a major advertiser.

In the memo, Hazell states that the column has been "held by the newspaper to get answers to certain questions." She does not say what those questions are, however.

She also states that Gombossy was aware that his position was being eliminated to make way for a hybrid print-television consumer reporter position that Gombossy "did not express any interest in." The Courant's news operations were recently merged with the local news operation at Fox-61, which is also owned by the Tribune Company.

The full Romenesko posting is here.

The Hartford Courant's longtime consumer reporter is saying he was fired "for doing his job" after the newspaper killed a critical column about one of its biggest advertisers.

In a posting on his new consumer news blog, Connecticut Watchdog, George Gombossy writes that a column he wrote about Sleepy's, a major furniture retailer, was held without explanation by the Courant's top management, even though it had been approved by his editor.

He published the text of the column on his blog with this note:

This was my column, as approved by my editor, that the Courant refused to publish about one of its biggest advertisers. It was scheduled to run on Aug. 2 but was held without an explanation. This was the first time in my 40 years at The Courant that an investigation by the attorney general was withheld from the public.

There are two sides to every story, and I've made a couple calls to the Courant newsroom and to Publisher Rich Graziano for an explanation of what happened.

According to Gombossy's new blog, the column was about complaints received by the Connecticut Attorney General's office in which some customers claim Sleepy's sold used mattresses and box springs as new. One complaint alleged that a box spring was infested with bedbugs.

So what happened?

(Click "continue" to read more)