Another day and another sacking (well suspension with an inevitable ending), this time from a doyen of high ethics, a trained journalist, Daniel P. Finney, a former writer with USA Today, the Des Moines Register and the Omaha World-Herald, and until last week, an employee of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who specialized in youth and culture, reviewing books, comics and DVD releases, as well as the occasional feature profile.
The suspension follows an outing of his blog, Crazy Roland Thompson (since removed) by newspaper Riverfront Times in their“Local Blog ‘o the week” column.
Despite hiding behind a pseudonym, he made little attempt to hide many aspects of his life on the blog, including lengthy passages about his job as a features writer.
According to the Riverfront Times, the posts took “frequent, thinly veiled potshots against his employer and co-workers”
The paper reports that he also wrote about stories he was working on for the paper;
“Today was an absolute abomination. It began unwillingly at 7:30 a.m. when I was forced from my sweet, gentle slumber to go to work on a hideously lame story involving Santa Claus and the Hard Rock Cafe.”