A newsroom cannot serve both an advertiser and its audience.

Seems like more and more are opting to keep the advertisers. You need ad dollars, yes, but there are times when some newspapers basically turn their newsrooms into advertorial departments, and there isn't a heck of a lot the reporters can do if they want to keep their jobs.

Huh. Being that I live smack dab in the middle of the Courant's distribution, I'm pretty interested to hear how this turns out. If everything in this filing is true, I'd say there's something a little screwy and unethical going on, but IANAL.

Wow, tough one - on one hand, it looks like they had it out for him, but maybe he had it coming - maybe it was even intentional on his part out of fear of losing his job. On the other, even if they don't have a solid agreement on why he was let go, there's not much in the way of "evidence" to prove that he was let go in violation of his free speech rights. If this goes to trial the jury will have a rough decision to make...but I'm sure it won't get that far.

You have no 1st amendment rights with a private employer.

Not surprising. I used to work at a newspaper, and when I first started we ran movie reviews, and we had a weekly "Crime Map," showing where the week's crimes had occurred.

Gradually they dropped the reviews (negative reviews wouldn't fill seats at the cineplex that advertised with us) and they killed the crime map as well, at the insistence of the local realtors (knowing how many murders happened around a given property made it hard to unload on an unsuspecting sucker).

It got to the point where some of the bigger advertisers were basically running the paper. If our management tried to stand up to them, they'd just threaten to pull their ads, so the paper would give in every time.

Interesting comment on his case. It seems that CT law prohibits firing an employee for exercising his free speech rights, but there's caselaw at the federal level that says that the First Amendment doesn't apply to speech that's part of the job (i.e. you can't be fired for writing an op-ed supporting a candidate your boss doesn't like, but you could be fired for telling a customer that you hate the company's product).

[www.ctemploymentlawblog.com]

@snowmoon:
hence, the suit is filed pursuant to Connecticut's laws regarding exercise of speech.

@docrice: His free speech rights weren't affected by the paper firing him. He can still say what he wants. The paper has a right to regulate what is said in their paper. Free speech rights are misunderstood and over used. He also has not right to a job as long as there was no contract and he isn't a minority.

This seems more like a PR problem for the paper more than a legal one.

@redskull: And not just that, but reporting rapes, for example, always leads to a number of readers canceling their subscription because they don't feel that's "appropriate" to be reported because "nobody wants to hear about that kind of thing." Awesome. Stupid reality, interfering with people's blinders!

I also live in what once had been "Courant country" — until it pulled its local news reporting, leaving our area to be covered by another paper that ended up being bought by the Journal Register Co. Yuck.

Anyway ... this is not the only allegation of impropriety being made against Tribune's Hartford operation (the Courant and WTIC-61 television station). WTIC reporter Shelly Sindland is suing Tribune for age/gender discrimination, and in the midst of her complaint in that case she alleges there was a "pay-for-news" scheme going at the TV station.

And then there was Rich Graziano, Courant publisher, not once but twice involved in one of his employees when she was caught for DUI twice in the same day. Weird, to say the least.

But quite aside from mere allegations and implications one might draw from all of the above ... that may or may not turn out to be true once a full accounting of everyone's stories is heard ... the Courant overtly admitted to having engaged in plagiarism, and apologized for it ([www.editorandpublisher.com]).

Overall the Tribune's Hartford operation is in sad shape. Even just the plagiarism debacle — which they admitted happened — is enough to wreck their credibility. The rest of it just makes them look a whole lot worse, and even more inept. It all looks so bad, I hardly know what to say any more, except that having to rely on a JRC paper for my local news, is not appreciably better.

"Sec. 31-51q. Liability of employer for discipline or discharge of employee on account of employee's exercise of certain constitutional rights. Any employer, including the state and any instrumentality or political subdivision thereof, who subjects any employee to discipline or discharge on account of the exercise by such employee of rights guaranteed by the first amendment to the United States Constitution or section 3, 4 or 14 of article first of the Constitution of the state, provided such activity does not substantially or materially interfere with the employee's bona fide job performance or the working relationship between the employee and the employer, shall be liable to such employee for damages caused by such discipline or discharge, including punitive damages, and for reasonable attorney's fees as part of the costs of any such action for damages. If the court determines that such action for damages was brought without substantial justification, the court may award costs and reasonable attorney's fees to the employer."

[www.cga.ct.gov]

You can't be fired for 1st amendment activities unless they interfere with your job duties or diss your employer.

I don't think he has a chance in hell of winning this case. His activities may be protected, but they sure as hell interfered with both his job duties and his relationship with his employer.

@NeverLetMeDown: The protection in 31-51q does not extend to activities that interfere with your bona fide job duties or to actions that harm the relationship between employee and employer.

Other than that, CT is also an "at will" employment state so any termination not expressly forbidden by statute is perfectly legal.

@snowmoon: Thanks for posting that snowmoon, gonna post the same.

How did the Courant do anything illegal? Unethical, yes, definitely. But from the looks of it, the columnist had no contract with the Courant. Therefore, the Courant can fire him whenever and for any reason, or for no reason (other than some specific illegal reasons like race, sex, whistleblowing, etc.).

Yes, he has the right to free speech, but that right is only about what the government does to you. For example, if I say something mean about my employer publicly, I can get fired.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that what the Courant did is right. But it is not illegal. Gombossy did not have a contract. If he did, and it said "you can say whatever you want, as long as it's true," then yeah, he'd be in the right. But no contract means you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all.

People still read printed newspapers?

@frank64: What does being a minority have to do with the right to a job? He can't be discriminated against in hiring or firing because of his race/protected status, but that doesn't protect his job.

@katstermonster: Agreed. I'm no longer in the area, but I spent several years there and held the paper in high regard back then.

@lalaland13:

This; absolutely. It's sad to see the newsroom's editorial integrity compromised.

@lalaland13: Any broadcaster that depends on advertisers to exist will always hold the dollar above all else. Integrity, trust, and reputation mean nothing when put up against the $$$.

This is one of those Yogi Berra moments, e.g., "It may be correct, but it ain't right."

You would think eventually these giant media outlets would learn that giving their writers direct access to the public without having to pass through any sort of editing/approving phase is a BAD idea.

This would have never happened if the guy tried to write a proper newspaper column bashing an advertiser, someone would have noticed it and said "hell no, write about something else"

But because it's on his own "consumer blog" he just puts it up there, and guess what, all the "the opinions of this employee do not reflect the opinions of giant parent corporation" disclaimers in the world won't stop the general public from associating a blog put up on the website with the paper as a whole.

You all got it wrong. It was the Nigerian government who got him fired cause he did an article about some trust fund that was about to go into probate because no living relatives could be found and the bank lawyer just didn't want the money to be lost in the system he just needed a small fee to transfer the name on the account to your name and an account number in which to make a deposit but this reporter said it was ann email scam an he refused to say he was "sorry"

Doesnt the first ammendment only apply to the government? "congress shall make no law" etc etc?

Speaking as one who has been in journalism for nearly 20 years, I can tell you he really doesn't have a case. The hardest lesson journalism students learn is the difference between the "ivory tower" ideal of separation of newsroom and advertising, and then there's the reality. During fat times, the ad department and company president leave you alone, but in the lean times, you feel them breathing down on you. This guy sounds like he really didn't have a clue and was too idealistic about his importance to the company. Sure, you have 1st Amendment rights, but not to piss on the advertisers, who have their own way of expressing themselves. If an advertiser pulls $100,000 in ads because of something you wrote, suddenly your freedom of speech is costing them too much.

And the publishers wonder why their papers are failing...

@redskull: I worked at one in a heavy tourist area and when I asked why we didn't review restaurants, I was told we couldn't ever print a bad review and piss off our advertisers.

At a different paper, they ran a critical article about one of the major advertisers. No one lost their job, but it was close. It was explained as the editorial had "mistakes" in the reporting and we never went near the other big advertisers again.

I don't believe that he has any leg to stand on in this case. Imagine for example, he was working in a marketing department and started making and publishing ads that were blatantly against the company. He's free to do that under the constitution, but his employer could (and would) still fire him. It's the same situation here - there's no reason that the paper has to keep him around (maybe ethically, but definitely not legally) when he's causing the paper to lose money.

@BB_User: What? -1 internet for you.

@scoopjones: This guy sounds like he really didn't have a clue and was too idealistic about his importance to the company.

That's certainly possible, but why hasn't anyone here considered that just maybe Gombossy knows his case doesn't have a leg to stand on? Maybe he's more interested in pointing out the utter insanity of the modern commercial world--where information that might help people is no match for corporate greed. I wonder how many subscribers the Courant has already lost over the issue, thanks to his efforts? More importantly, how much business has been lost by the offended advertisers?

I'm not advocating frivolous lawsuits; a fair interpretation is that he's hoping a judge will consider the dismissal unjustified as "substantially or materially interfer[ing] with the employee's bona fide job performance or the working relationship between the employee and the employer" (thank you, snowmoon) since he did, essentially, follow the directive of July 22 by presenting the draft of the Sleepy's article to his editors prior to posting. Then they fired him.

Either way, I love that this has caused trouble for the Tribune and for the shady companies featured in Gombossy's blog. Greed should be punished in just this fashion.

@CheritaChen: That's what I was thinking--that he's not looking for a result in a court of law, he's looking for a result in the court of public opinion.

If the account above is true, The Hartford Courant violated many basic rules of good reporting. Tribune (their owner) has been in freefall for over a year. This speaks horribly to how that paper is being run.

If readers are lucky they will see the Courant to a local businessperon who cares about it's future.

When I was a reporter, there was never anything formal or written about being nice to advertisers.

But I was told to cover them in a positive light and give them free press at any and every opportunity. We even ran a special "Business of the Week" section for great local businesses and they all just happened to be our largest advertisers. The publisher called them "advertorials" and I was in charge of writing them.

I doubt it was a rare situation. I completely believe this guy.

Newspapers are dying, circling the drain. They know it. All their "journalist standards" have been dumped in a panic so they can quickly make a buck before the end comes.

I just watched last night (for the full 6 hours) the BBC production of "State of Play" - [www.imdb.com]

And it wasn't advertisers the newspaper had to worry about, it was the British govt. Makes you think of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. I wonder how much investigative journalism is going to get done if reporters have to worry about advertisers. It's not always the government that messes up.

@katstermonster: Yeah, the Courant (and, by association, channel 61) have plenty of issues on their plate, and this isn't necessarily the worst now, but...

Consumer watchdog um how is it not his job to report on companies being investigated. It seems that maybe the CT statute might apply. However I do beleive his motive is more the court of public opinion coupled with advertising his new site. What a fine ethical line that might be but hey if its the truth why not use it to jumpstart a new living.

@redskull: Crime map? Can't imagine anyone getting away with that now. Back when I was at my last job, people complained about the police blotter. (Mostly because they were in it, or their kids...)

@PsiCop: Which one? Can't think of any recent JRC acquisitions...

@PLATTWORX: Wouldn't be unheard of, but nowadays I'm not sure if the Courant has the same level of goodwill as the Bristol Press or New Britain Herald (which were days away from going tits-up until a local publisher bought them). Tribune's actions aren't really helping.

@lalaland13: NPR & PBS for the win!

This is essentially why you see very few restaurant reviews anymore. The reviewers might still go out, but if the review is less than glowingly positive, no printing.

@snowmoon: You're damn right. I'll go one further to say that in many states, any employee can be fired for any reason as long as it's not discriminatory.

Seems to me that they fired Gombossy for cause though, simply because his stories did not make their cut. The Courant may decide for itself what it prints, and they are not squelching his free press or free speech rights by refusing to print his blather. If Gombossy wants his story heard, he has a right to print his own newspaper or find another media outlet. No case.

Most of the commenters here are debating or commenting on Mr. Gombossy's chances of winning/losing or an employer's right to fire an uncooperative employee. Keep in mind it was the management of the paper that created this contradictory circumstance and Mr. Gombossy happened to find himself in a position to follow or not follow his convictions in the furtherance of his defined job.

While many people may feel Mr. Gombossy is tilting at windmills and that his efforts will - in the end - be wasted, I applaud his willingness to stand up for integrity in the process he believed would provide the greatest benefits for the consumers who read his columns. It is too bad that the "fair and impartial" news industry can so easily be bought and subverted.

It is also a shame that businesses can afford to buy positive reviews - or suppress negative ones - but can't or won't use their resources to provide quality service or products in the first place.

Well...unfortunately...most columnists are freelance employees and hence have little if any rights. It wouldn't matter however, employers can fire you for any reason they want short of the race, creed, color, medical/physical disability deal with the traditional AT-WILL employment agreement.

Sucks but not really anything you can do except sue for wrongful employment, even then it will only sour other employers to hiring you.

@katstermonster: I grew up reading the Courant but about 10 years ago drop my subscription becasue they seem to be just AP articles and ads. Gone was the local news, gone in house reporting and gone columnists. This was all before the internet under cut them.

Besides getting too close to advertisers they have been caught poaching stories from smaller in state papers. I think we are seeing the last profits being rung out of the paper before it is closed.

@drjayphd: I love reading the local crime blotter. Anyone new to a city and looking for a place to live just has to look at the local crime blotter. The same areas keep popping up, so you know which ones to avoid.

So a newspaper would better succeed if its reporters wrote disparaging articles (true or not) about its advertisers?@jpdanzig:

That is a great movie and a great miniseries. It's also a good counterargument to the whole "we don't need newspapers, blogs will fill in the gaps" argument. People sitting at their laptops in Starbuck's are not going to fill in the gaps left by professional journalists with both the time and money to see a story through from start to finish. If newspapers do die, we will miss good investigative reporting. Blogs and websites cannot - as of yet anyway - generate the revenue needed to support such reporting. @nybiker:

In the UK he'd have a case for wrongful dismissal; if you make someone redundant you have to offer them similar positions if such are available, and they have first refusal over an outside candidate. The new role sounds similar enough to interview him for it at least.

Other than that it doesn't sound like a case to me. There's no law against being a shill paper.