Let's Be Clear About What Happened and Why

It seems like the Plain Dealer hopes to make this story go away by making it seem complicated. It's simple. Here's what happened:

1. Four bloggers were hired to be bloggers, NOT reporters. The whole idea was for us to vigorously advocate our respective positions. We were carefully balanced between liberals and conservatives. Nobody asked if we had made poitical contributions or supported candidates, which would have seemed silly anyway.

2. LaTourette complained to the Plain Dealer about me participating. He talked to Editorial Page Editor Brent Larkin at least once and to reporter Sabrina Eaton once. Eaton told him to take his concerns to senior levels, which I assume he did. He did not raise any issue about the other liberal blogger, who has made contributions to Democrats, just me.

3. I was fired because LaTourette complained. It would not have happened if LaTourette did not exert pressure. My fellow blogger Jill has made donations and did not get fired. Online Editor Jean Dubail brought up LaTourette's complaints at least three times in talking to one or all of us. He told me the day I got fired that Editor Susan Goldberg told him to fire me two weeks before, but Dubail held her off.

Ms. Goldberg doesn't deny that LaTourette exerted pressure, she is trying to deny that the Plain Dealer bowed to it. She now says that they would not have hired me if they had known that I had made contributions to LaTourette's opponents.

This is simply not credible. No pressure, no firing. There was no policy against paid bloggers making contributions until they needed it. Now that they say it is their policy, they have to deal with the fact that it was selectively applied (nobody else got fired) and that it doesn't make any sense (unlike reporters, I was paid to express my partisan views).