The Internet, as we all know, has taken a toll on the venerable newspaper industry--so we'd understand that print media folks would be a little bit sensitive when their writers crack jokes about it. But, as it turns out, they might be more thin-skinned than we thought. Humor writer Elliot Kalan, who writes a column for the free daily newspaper New York Metro, might've just gotten fired over it.
Kalan, who is also a segment producer for Comedy Central's The Daily Show, wrote a column in the publication's August 3 edition entitled "Newspapers: Information's Horse & Buggy, in which he asserted that "Nobody reads newspapers anymore...As this very copy of Metro shows, the only way to get most people to read a newspaper is to literally force it into their hands." Ouch. A potshot not only to the print media as a whole, but also to the phenomenon of free dailies that are ungracefully waved in your face like giant newsprint mosquitoes as soon as you emerge from the dank underworld of New York City's subways.
New York magazine's Web site reported that the powers that be over at Metro, which also runs Boston and Philadelphia editions, weren't too happy, and sacked Kalan immediately.
Betting pool time: Which blog will hire him now?
(Via Jossip)
Discuss: Say what? 'Nobody reads newspapers anymore' allegedly gets columnist fired
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