Will The Real Tom Johnson Please Stand Up?

THE BEGINNING
Way, way back in the dark ages - shortly after the turn of the century - I wrote my ver

CLUELESS IN COSTA MESA

HEY! THAT WAS EASY!

A month later something else provoked me, so I wrote another "letter" and it, too, was published. That relationship grew and, at one point, the Daily Pilot was publishing my submissions three times a week. That's how all this began, so Tom gets some of the credit/blame.
KIND OFFERS, GRATEFULLY DECLINED
Over the years Tom a

A SHARED DISGUST

Tom and I shared a mutual disgust for the rantings of one local writer - a man of international infamy as a voice of intolerance. Tom coined the nickname "Mensa Marty" for this fellow - you know who I mean.
AN EXCITING NEW VENTURE
When Tom departed the Daily P

MODEST SUCCESS AND SEPARATION

That publication, The Daily Voice, had modest success. Lobdell departed to go work with the infamous Barry Minkow and Tom eventually folded the operation into what is now the Newport Beach Independent. He left that organization last year after disagreeing with the direction the owners were taking.
A VOID...

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN
I was overjoyed that Tom recently surfaced again as the General Manager

ANOTHER OFFER, AGAIN GRATEFULLY DECLINED

SHORT AND NOT-SO-SWEET
Last Monday, April 16th, out of the blue Tom sent me a short, cryptic note. Here's what he wrote:

PROVOKED TO ACTION
I wrote back to him that I was just one guy with a lot of territory to cover and that I'd seen Mickadeit's column and hadn't decided whether to write about it or not. However, his little prod forced me to set aside some other stuff I was working on and write about it. You read it HERE. I sent Tom the link to my blog entry the next morning and heard nothing from him since then.
SURPRISED AND DISMAYED

WHAT?

Tom is clearly very critical of what I wrote and how I wrote it, but he had just offered me a job to do that very thing for him two weeks earlier. This quantum shift made me more than a little curious and, since I hold him in such high esteem, got my juices flowing.
IT'S OK TO DISAGREE, BUT...
Certainly, it's possib

CRITICIZING MY VIEW
As you read through Tom's column you'll find that he quotes extensively from my blog entry about Frank Mickadeit. He, apparently, is unhappy that I've chosen to criticize another Register writer for only presenting one side of the issue. Then, again, Mickad

IT'S WHAT I DO...
Tom criticizes me for presenting MY opinion on MY blog where the objective is clearly stated in the masthead. I present the readers with my views, based on the facts as I understand them, along with my opinions. Those who might be offended by my characterizations or the images I choose to use to emphasize a point can simply not read them - it's pretty simple.
FANNING THE FLAMES


WHO'S BULLYING WHOM?
Early in his piece Tom calls me a bully, and yet he uses his "bully pulpit" - yes, I know the definition of that phrase - to bully me! His distribution reaches tens of thousands of readers each week - a claim I only wish I could make. He refers to what I write as "editorializing at its best" - which I fully accept as an accurate description of what I do here. However, I think he meant it as a criticism, not a compliment.
CURIOUS...

POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY
With great power comes great responsibility. As the General Manager of a significant local news source, Tom has great power at his fingertips. Back whe

NOT THE SAME...

OH, WELL...
I'm not sure where we go from here, but I suspect I've had my last job offer from Tom Johnson.

Labels: Barry Minkow, Bill Lobdell, Tom Johnson, Will Swaim