The announcement last week by Tampa Bay Times CEO and Chairman Paul Tash that because of a "crisis situation" employees who opted to leave the paper by October 1 would receive their full severance package has led to a number of notable staffers announcing this week that they'll accept a buy-out, none more prominent than features writer Jeff Klinkenberg.
There are other major reporters who are exiting, but I'd like to take the time this morning to give praise to one in particular, Senior Editor/At Large Joe Childs. Along with Tom Tobin, Childs was the reporter who broke a number of stories over the years regarding the Church of Scientology, none bigger than the 2009 expose called "The Truth Rundown,"which was a game-changer in terms of how the rest of the national media began covering COS. As the paper itself described it, the stories shed "unprecedented light on the internal workings of a secretive church that counts Clearwater as its spiritual home." It also led to CNN's Anderson Cooper doing his own series of interviews based on those stories called "Scientology: A History of Violence," which reported competing claims and denials about violence at the top of the hierarchy at the Church.
Childs's and Tobin's reporting played a major role in Janet Reitman's 2011 expose, Inside Scientology, as well as Lawrence Wright's 2013 book, Going Clear, and their groundbreaking work was acknowledged by both those authors when their books were published.
Hearing about Klinkenberg's departure, a caller to my weekly radio show yesterday bemoaned what will become of the Times, referring to the fact that none of the other print competition in town, which includes us, La Gaceta, St. Petersblog or even the Tampa Tribune, can consistently compete to do the in-depth investigations that the paper has become noted for over the years and decades.
I stressed to him that while that might be the case in the future, at this moment there has not been that type of deterioration of the quality of in-depth reporting at the paper. The fact of the matter is that, whatever its current financial situation, the Times — at this very moment — still has more resources than anyone in town. Might they start to manage it better? That seems to me to be the question. But there's no doubt that the time Childs and Tobin were allowed to write their investigations is something that others in local journalism have been envious of for a long time, because nobody else can afford to take that time.
So good luck to Mr. Childs, and all the other staffers (including my pal Elisabeth Parker) who will be departing the paper in the next few weeks.
In other news...
Libertarian Adrian Wyllie is polling impressively for a third-party candidate in the governor's race, but it's not good enough for the folks who run the statewide televised debates, prompting the Palm Harbor IT consultant to hire First Amendment attorney Luke Lirot to work his magic. Lirot was able to get third-party candidate Max Linn one debate during his quixotic candidacy for governor in 2006.
St. Petersburg attorney Scott Orsini is attempting to oust Kathleen Peters as House District 69's state representative in Tallahassee. In an interview with CL, Orsini says that while he may skew progressive on some issues, he's not strictly a party man.
And please check out my story in this week's CL on America's obsession with conspiracy theories.