The firing of Robert Scheer

Robert Scheer is no longer an op-ed columnist for the L.A. Times. He was fired. Or let go. Or dumped. Or whatever you want to call it. Editorial Page Editor Andres Martinez explains here. Sort of. But not really.

Californian Kevin Drum: "I'm pretty easygoing about stuff like this, but even I find this vaguely insulting. We're given several reasons Scheer wasn't fired — Not too liberal! Not because of ideology! Not for opposing the war! Not because his prose was too passionate! — but never given a reason why he was fired. If they want to fire the guy, then fire away. If they want to keep quiet about the reasons, I guess that's fine too. But if you write a special box solely to tell your readers why he was let go, shouldn't you actually tell your readers why he was let go?"

Um... yeah. How 'bout that? I was on and off with Scheer, but it'd be nice to know why he was shuffled out of the rotation.

(See also Poynter Online, L.A. Observed, and Brendan Nyhan.