Tag Results for Tribune Company

This week the CEO of the Tribune Company listed 119 words and phrases that anchors and reporters are now forbidden to use on the air at WGN-AM in Chicago. "Beat the Press" panelists chime in on what news jargon they think should be banned. 

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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