Greenwich Media Watch:
Is The Editor Of The Greenwich Post Committing Commercial Suicide?
Yesterday Greenwich news readers opened the Greenwich Post to find that a local newspaper columnist had been fired, because some real estate agencies complained that his columns were somehow hurting their businesses.
The spineless publisher and editor caned this brilliant columnist out of fear a real estate agency might pull some ads....
Please See:
05/02/08 - Where The Heck Is Chris Fountain And His "For What It's Worth" Column In The Greenwich Post Real Estate Section
Just look at the response and support Chris Fountain is getting from the the citizens that are sick and tired of the local media protecting the powers that be and not being willing to tell the truth in this town.
At 9:24 PM, said...
I am very sorry to hear you were let go. I only wish I had a subscription to the Greenwich Post so that I could cancel it.
The only way for America to dig its way out of this mess is for the facts to come out... Which ultimately they will and the sooner the better.
I commend you for your honest reporting.
At 10:16 AM, said...
Chris,
Keep up the good work. Your column is a great resource for us Greenwich real estate obsessed.
At 3:56 PM, said...
I am going to "fire" the Post. The only reason I had a subscription was to read your column. I will look forward to your online posts instead!
At 4:02 PM, said...
I am canceling my subscription. Your article was the only reason I subscribed. I am looking forward to more frequent postings!
Those real estate agencies need to get a grip. People (especially those who make enough money to afford a house in Greenwich) are not dumb - no amount of rose tinted glasses are going to cover up the true market conditions. Keep up your reporting!
At 8:46 AM, said...
What a bunch of cowards. As if not reporting the news means it doesn't happen.
What is the email of the Greenwich Post's publisher? I would like to write him.
At 11:48 AM, said...
The contacts at the Post can be found here: http://www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/greenwich-staff.shtml
Below is an email I sent to the Editor and the advertising reps along with a response I received from one of the latter.
If you go to the Post's website, you will see some web ads inserted on the right side. Sadly, this confirms how important real estate-related advertising is to a publication like the post. Given the live or die by their sold ad space, I would not expect much to come from my complaint.
Chris, keep up the blog posts and let's hope you get picked up by one of the other publications.
Tom
-------------------
Subject: Canning Chris Fountain
Editor:
Please register my complaint on your decision to fire Chris Fountain. While Chris mocked the pricing of a house that I purchased in early 2004, I still enjoyed reading his column to keep me up on what was going on in town-related real estate. His candor was always appreciated, even when it may have been “politically incorrect”.
I have no reason to doubt, as Chris suggests on his blog, that “according to the owner, it came down to a choice between my readers, who liked me, and certain real estate agencies who did not. The latter pays bills, the former does not, so I got the heave ho.” That you appear to have caved to pressure from other realtors is disappointing to say the least. Sure, advertising is the lifeblood of publications such as yours and no one should expect any sort of journalistic moral code from you, but to cave in so publicly is an embarrassment.
Did you stop to ask where those current advertisers would go if they pulled their ads from your publication? There are only three publications that find their ways into most Greenwich homes and onto local newsstands and I seriously doubt the realtors would be willing to give up 20-30% of their local “eyeballs” over this issue. Frankly, the only reason I read the Post was for Chris’ column and the real estate ads and you have removed the more important of those reasons. My kids may read the sports columns but their ability to put money into your advertisers hands is limited at best.
I would ask that you reconsider this decision and reinstate Chris’ column.
Tom......
The response which I received within minutes of sending this morning:
Dear Tom,
Thank you for your email. I’ll be sure it gets into the hands of the Editor and Publisher here at Hersam Acorn Newspapers.
Dana Gaccione
The Greenwich Post
Hersam Acorn Newspapers
The only reason I read the Greenwich Post is now gone? What a mistake. I hope you keep blogging. Get some ads here, we will still happily read you thoughts.
Sorry the Posst made such a big mistake.
At 3:11 PM, said...
Chris,
I just sent off an email to cancel delivery . . . just kept it simple - No Chris Fountain; No Post, thank you.
Having grown up in town (a couple of years behind you), I enjoy your musing about the way things have changed just as much (if not more) than real estate news.
But I am happy to hear you will be continuing to blog here!
Judy
At 7:42 PM, tpjudge@aim.com tp judge said...
Chris there is only one way to stick it to them....sell more real estate and blog more.
I have always been a fan of the column and have often used it as my second opinion of the market.
Lets kick it up a notch. I have a a few ideas on how to help.
Tim Judge
Judge and Associates Inc
Chris, you didn't deserve this. You merely reported the news gathered by a major publisher and widely reported elsewhere. Its not as if you sourced it from conversation overheard at a cocktail party.
This loyal reader hopes you will continue your witty, insightful and honest column online.
By the way, don't you think its time the Greenwich Post adds the "This is a Paid Advertisement" disclaimer to all of its so called reporting and columns? Based on there decision to fire you, it’s probably dishonest not too.
-Jason
Cos Cob
At 7:25 PM, said...
Like many others, your column was the reason I read this weekly. One can easily understand by newspaper circulation is declining in the entire country (see NYT article last week). When publishers catered to their advertisers and ignore the reality of the environment, their readers will go elsewhere. We are fortunate to have the internet where we can read your what really is going on.
At 11:29 PM, said...
Chris Fountain:
Add me to those who only opened that paper to read your column (well, used to read the traffic violations, but they disappeared, too, a few weeks ago - I suspect that move lost the rest of the "readership")
Fado Lane Fan said...
I've just bookmarked your blog, Chris. To heck with the weekly!
Your column was the only reason that sorry excuse of a newspaper didn't go directly from the mailbox to the recycling bin.
All the other real estate agents drink the Kool-Aid, smile, and tell people what they want to hear. It was so refreshing to have someone tell the truth for a change.
claudette rothman said...
They don't know good reporting when they hear it, no wonder that damn paper is free. It's free because it's not worth anything.
Claudette Rothman
greenwichdiva.com
louis van leeuwen said...
I will cancel my sub to the GREENWICH POST.
LVL
Riverside
But Readers Of Greenwich Roundup Know that the Greenwich Post has a history of selling out their readers....
04/04/08 - Forget About A Free Press - Censorship At The Greenwich Post - Helping Cover Shay's You Know What
The Greenwich Post Editor Is Sort Of Acting Like A High School Student Advisor That Kills Disent And Limits Voices, Because She Don't Want To Upset The Powers That Be....
04/14/08 - Freedom With Resposability? Let Greenwich High School Students Speak Their Minds (Updated)
04/15/08 - Ryan Has More To Say About Censorship At Greenwich High School
When I used this blog to speak out about the Greenwich Police Department and conditions in Byram, my family and I were horribly harassed and attacked by police personnel and town employees...
12/31/07 - Red Alert - The Gateway To The Town Of Greenwich And The Village Of Byram Looks Like A Hazardous Waste Zone
The answer in Greenwich always seems to be to try and get a dissenting voice to shut up.
If someone writes that the local real estate is in trouble, then fire him.
The Market Place Of Ideas Should Be Much More Free And Open In Greenwich.
Greenwich Residents Are Repeatedly Having To Turn To Internet To Hear The Voices That Might Want To Say I Think The Powers That Be Are Wrong.
Greenwich needs to buy into the belief that holds that the truth or the best policy arises out of the competition of widely various ideas in free, transparent public discourse. This is an important part of liberal democracy.
Years ago, there were some voices in Greenwich saying that a war with Iraq was going to be a big mistake. The press ignored them and most of us really did not try and seek out those other voices.
My own wife was one of those voices. I told my Korean wife that we had to go to war in two countries, because we had to "make the world safe for democracy."
My wife told me that this was the stumpiest thing she ever heard.
One time my wife honked our car horn on Greenwich Avenue in support of the anti-war protesters. I told her,"What, are you trying to get a ticket? Don't encourage those lunatics. They don't know nothing about this war."
I was sitting in the Greenwich Diner on a night before the war and was watching CNN and a waiter from Egypt told me that all this war was going to do was give Iraq to the Shiites In Iran.
I told him I had a son in the Army and that he and the rest of the military was going to show Iran who was the boss. We were going to have a military presence on both sides of Iran. Both Afghanistan and Iraq were going to become democracies and one by one all of the states in the middle east were going to become democracies. Even Iran was going to become a democracy.
Then I repeated a CNN sound byte about how "this war was going to make the world a safer place", because "democracies don't go to war with other democracies."
My Egyptian waiter walked away muttering something about how I and the rest of the world would soon be "paying $5.00 a gallon" for gas.
Yes, I was one of the Big Dummies that took a big sip of this administrations Kool aid. I should have been better informed and then I could of helped my country make better decisions.
Now I and over 70% of the nation wish we could rewind the tape and do things differently.
That Egyptian waiter is now the overnight manager of the Greenwich Diner and one of these days I have got to go tell him ,"You know what, you were right about this damn war, but you were wrong about the gas. I just went to Port Chester and paid $3.95"
All of us in Greenwich should have been open to and listened to more voices and we could have helped our country make better policy decisions.
If you go and look back at all of the screw up that have occurred in Greenwich then you start to wish that we did not have a news media that did not fire columnists over an opinion about the economy or refused to publish a letter that criticizes an elected official.
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