Bwahahahahaa.

The Keynoter/Reporter garbage-mess of a newspaper published a story about what’s happening at the Key West Citizen – another garbage-mess of a newspaper.

Interesting.  Very interesting.  Of course, I went the extra mile and turned up a bit more info.

Apparently Publisher, Paul Clarin, and Controller, Paul Donnelly, were let go on Wednesday.  Donnelly was escorted off the premises by the cops.  He’s not under arrest or anything.  I guess the company just wanted to avoid a scene.

I don’t know why these guys were terminated.  I doubt that being bad at journalism is cause for firing at the Citizen.  Maybe they had their hands in the cookie jar?  Or maybe they spent too much time at the water cooler?  Gwen Filosa is on the story so we’ll probably never know.  As you might recall, she glossed over Kevin Madok’s CPA license lie when she worked at the Citizen.  (Or some editor glossed it over.)

For grins I went over to Sunbiz.org and searched under Paul Clarin’s name.  This entry came up.  Cooke Government Systems, LLC?  What the heck is that?  Anyhow, it made me curious as to what side work the Citizen might have going on.

It turns out that Cooke Communications, which owns the Citizen, runs the TDC website for Monroe County.  In the agreement, they’re referred to as FloridaKeys.com.  Same people though.  See here.   They keep all advertising revenues generated by the TDC website and they get paid up to $125,000 per year for special projects.  How about that!

Do you suppose that might get in the way of reporting unflattering stories about county government or their close allies?  Or maybe encourage the Citizen  to smear people the county might want smeared?

Hmmm…I wonder what the Keynoter/Reporter has going on?  Or do they do the same sleazy shit for free?