:: Running from the Thought Police ::

:: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 ::

It's Official - Acton's Fired

Acton Gorton, the Daily Illini Editor-in-Chief who was responsible for reprinting the Danish cartoons, has been fired by the Illini Media board of directors. If you want to read his self-pitying prose, you can over at his blog. He throws words like "Stalinist" around, though (as if corporations were run like a democracy) so be warned. He's taken down that stupid "Banned" post that he had up earlier. Once the actual announcement is posted by someone not named Acton Gorton, I'll link to it. [Update: the DI story's here. -Ed.]

To briefly restate my position - Acton decided to run the cartoons and did a horribly bad job of doing so - and by "horribly bad" I mean "even worse than the DI usually does." This terrible job caused major problems for the paper, and since Acton was the one responsible, Acton's the one with the freshly-printed pink slip.

Also, Chuck Prochaska, the Opinions Editor who was also involved in printing the cartoons, was offered his job back, but declined (Why? Dunno. He probably thinks he's making a principled stand or some such nonsense). This seems to indicate that the acting Editors-in-Chief either agree with my position, or have similar reasoning. (Or they just like Chuck better. Who knows?) In any case, Chuck's bid to be student trustee was DOA because of all this, so he might just be bitter about that.

There's also some ominous language at the end of Acton's post which leads me to expect that he and his lawyer are going to be suing the DI. Either that, or he's going to try to become a press darling again (even though his fifteen minutes are long expired). In any case, it's probably not going to be pretty, and will probably involve a whole lot of stupid.

:: The Squire 10:49 PM :: email this post :: ::
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