It turns out the Boston Newspaper Guild did indeed use the term “guilty” in an e-mail to its members about the removal of president Dan Totten; see the update at the end of my earlier item.
And Adam Reilly of the Phoenix speaks with Boston Globe staff reporter Maria Cramer, who says Totten was ousted strictly because of his misdeeds — and not out of any sense that he’d bungled the Guild’s dealings with the New York Times Co. Reilly writes:
“I find that suggestion” — i.e., that Totten’s trial represented a form of payback — “to be insulting in the least,” Cramer says. “We spent nearly four hours looking at the evidence, which was lengthy and very detailed…. It’s a duty that we took extremely seriously. We understood that the result would probably meet with this kind of criticism. But at the same time, I definitely feel we made the right decision — I have no doubt about that — and that it was free of politics.”
And there the matter rests. For now.
Still more: Boston Herald reporter Jessica Heslam has an e-mail exchange between Totten and his accusers. Looks to me like this is the key quote from Totten:
BNG / TNG / CWA has designated a member to act as “prosecutor” in this matter who attended a newsroom meeting this past September, 2009 with the purpose of assisting in the distribution and signing of a petition for my removal from office as BNG president. His actions were based on newsroom members opinion of the ratified contract of July, 2009, and their disagreement with its provisions. The jury selected for the trial contains several members as panelists who also attended the September, 2009 newsroom meeting and were signatories to a removal petition. None of these individuals is impartial; in fact, they are seeking to have me removed from office, and using this process as a vehicle to that end. This is in direct contradiction to the letter and spirit of the by-laws, and I will not be party to it.
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Simply stated – the union is not a satisfied customer.
Again…in terms of tenure, he was a dead man walking. He was the target of a recall petition, and — this might speak to his hardline stance — he was about to become expendable.
One word, three letters: SAP.
That’s not liquid tree juice, nor a carnival stooge…it’s the comprehensive databasing SW that will likely render Totten’s job as relevant as male nipples.