Why I don't write for the Council Bluffs Daily NonPaper any more and why it doesn't matter

E-mail me at gjerrett@yahoo.com for questions and details...


There I was on the morning of Aug. 12 minding my own
business writing an obit - a task for which I was not
hired but did anyway - at my desk at the Daily
Nonpareil when Jon Leu called me on the intercom to
come to his office. It had to be bad news because Jon
didn't talik to me at all if he could help it and only
called me by intercom when something bad was about to
happen to me.

Long story short, they fire me for sending "a personal
e-mail" to a contact of mine. I had been having a
three way e-mail conversation with her and another
contact about conflict of interest as well as how
stupid some people were for either allowing or
encouraging one of my editors to run for school board.


This is a clear cut conflict of interst, one of the
biggest in our business. One cannot be a reporter,
editor or writer employed by a newspaper and run for
public office.

My contacts agreed and we batted e-mails back and
forth forth for some time while I worked on other
stories. To me, it's no harder or time consuming than
chatting witha coworker while typing away on a story
and is, in fact, a good use of time in my opinion.

But I am not a popular man with the management of the
Daily NonPaper. The publisher, Tom Schmitt, hates the
fact that he has never once been right about me. He,
like so many others in my life. Had wanted very much
to dismiss me as a lowest common denominator kind of
writer. Someone who plays to people's lowest
expectations and twisted human emotions. But the truth
was that I was good. I actually made people feel good
about themselves, I made them think and feel and they
wanted more of me.

For three years they wanted more and never got tired
of me as I'm sure he believed they soon would. I am
from Council Bluffs. I know the town that reared me. I
know the people. I know what they want to hear and
what they NEED to hear. But I am honest and I never
manipulate my audience. I don't pander to them. I
don't cajole them or tell them simply what they want
to hear so they will like me. That way leads to ruin.
Evdntually, your audience will figure out that you are
full of shit and they will tune out leaving you on
your pedastal alone and confused.

Honesty is the hardest thing to come by and the last
thing the corporate overlords want. They cannot
conceive of honstey as a virtue only a detriment to
their profit margin. So when some fucking guy like me
comes along and proves that not only can one be honest
but popular and long-lasting to boot, it annoys them.

I honestly think I could have been golden for a good
long time at the NP i it hadn't been for Tom Schmitt.
Everyone else who mattered semed to like me well
enough.

So what was Scmitt's problem? The very same fucking
week I was fired I won the Nonpareil's Reader's Choice
Award for favorite writer for the second year in a
row. He got second and that was probably because he
got his family to sit around filling out forms. So
long as I was there, he would never get out from
uinder my shadow. Me, a god damn flunky who refused to
act like a piece of shit.

Well buddy, for $21,000 a year, you don't GET my
fucking soul. You get my ass in a chair and that's it.
The rest is mine.

I'm not done with them by a damn sight.

Keep checking in for more and please send my address
to your friends since this is now where I write and do
forgive any spelling errors or typos you come across.
I write from the hip.

PEACE!