I resigned. I've heard different versions such as a blog post by a Newstreamz manager who said I was "allowed to resign." Their ad director told the Sunrise Club that there had been a "staff shakeup." I don't know what advantage is to be gained for them by portraying me as having been fired but I resigned for the reasons stated in the post referenced above. For all I know, it may have been this new management crew's intention to force me out but it did not unfold that way. I had reservations specifically about Gregson as his intentions for the newspaper became clear to me.
My focus now is making The Mercury the best newspaper it can be; I am fortunate to have a known quantity and respected journalist like Bill Peterson as a business partner. Like the other Web site, the Mercury is enabled for readers to comment -- including questioning whatever political bias one sees in any particular piece I write. Please see Peterson's
HaysHighway.com, which he will be redirecting to the Mercury in the next few weeks, and his statement of transparency, which we are reworking for the Mercury. It reads, in part, "Some immature journalists would have you believe they are endowed by the creator with a God's eye view of reality such that they can describe the truth absolutely, without subtraction or addition. In the real world, humane persons of good will understand this is nonsense. ... A journalist must be open-minded, which is a widely misunderstood attribute. Open-mindedness is not, in any sense, a refusal to hold beliefs or develop perspectives. That's closed-mindedness. A closed mind shuts its gates, allowing nothing to come in and take hold. An open mind happily lodges beliefs, but only provisionally and to the extent that such beliefs stand up to experience and cohere with its other beliefs. An open mind, therefore, revises its beliefs appropriately in the light of new evidence"
Brad Rollins
www.sanmarcosmercury.com