A.C. Kleinheider, who was the lead online blogger for the Nashville Post at Post Politics before taking his current position in the Lieutenant Governor's office, posted on his Facebook page last night via the MetroPulse that Michael Silence-the resident blogger at the Knoxville News Sentinel whose work literally began that paper's foray into the blogosphere-has been laid off by the folks at E. W. Scripps. This is yet another example of the declining quality of the News Sentinel and of Scripps newspapers generally. One has to wonder if the News Sentinel will suffer the same fate eventually as the Rocky Mountain News and The Cincinnati Post-which had been the very flagship of the Scripps chain. The Rocky and the Post were good papers, but if the KNS wants to join them in their fate, cutting your best people from the staff is not the way to insure viability. In what is likely the last post on his blog No Silence Here, Michael Silence confirmed via the paper's online staff that the rumors of his departure were true this morning.
It is well known by those of you who are familiar with this writer's work and have been for many years that Michael Silence and I have tussled a few times. The most recent of these occassions was in late November 2008, when Silence insulted yours truly in deadwood print (as well as online at the KNS website) because this writer said publicly what most of us in Upper East Tennessee were already privately thinking, that "[t]here is little doubt that Mr. Obama's election is the greatest singular evil that has ever befallen this country-but the die is cast." The President has done precious little indeed to change my mind on that point during his period of office, and has in fact amplified that reality. Michael Silence's reaction to it had our friend Rob Huddleston wondering if Silence and Yours Truly ought to get it on in a Loser-Leaves-Town steel cage match.
However, we always respected Mike Silence. It wasn't just that Silence made an effort to understand the blogosphere of East Tennessee, he immersed himself into it. Those of us in the political blogosphere on all sides of the spectrum trusted Silence to give us a fair shake and a fair hearing, and the vast majority of the time, he did just that. This writer owes Michael Silence a debt of gratitude because-perhaps unwittingly-Silence exposed this writer to a larger audience for the first time, and our work began to develop something of a following-which would carry on to The Examiner.
It is a sad commentary on the state of newspapers that they no longer have room for the integrity and the quality of the Michael Silences of the world.
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