Newspaper publisher Richard L. Connor can’t stay out of the spotlight.
The Fort Worth Business Press owner (and former publisher of Fort Worth Star-Telegram) ought to know how to avoid headlines by now, and yet he stumbles from one hiccup to the next.
Not long ago his courage and integrity were questioned.
One of his newspapers, The Portland Press Herald, ran a front page story and photo of Muslims praying on the last day of Ramadan in 2010. Nothing wrong with that. But then some super patriots complained that Muslims were…gasp!…featured in a positive light in a newspaper published on Sept. 11.
No apology was necessary, but Conner printed one the next day on the front page. This prompted Blotch to call him “spineless.”
Now the Associated Press writes about an ethics complaint regarding a Connor newspaper allegedly giving away free newspaper ads to a favored political campaign.
I left a message with Connor to get his side of the story. I’ll add his remarks here if he returns the call.
Good. Let me take another opportunity here to remember that Connor made the S-T the most homophobic paper in the Southwest, which is saying something. He made the paper so synonymous with gay bashing, that it still reeks of it, or at least what’s left of it does. He refused to let gays and lesbians use the romance and personal ads that used to run in Star Time. He refused to let gays and lesbians run (paid) announcements of their unions (forget marriages), though virtually every other paper in the state got past that one early on.
The man’s a bigot.
Richard Connor’s Fort Worth Business Press editorial “The Uppity Dumpties” is well done and worth your time to read.
Ethics in Fort Worth…or elsewhere. What’s that? Certainly has no meaning here.