Did “Baghdad” Tony Messenger get demoted? Without much notice, Messenger has gone from being the editor of the Springfield News-Leader to being a beat reporter in the Missouri capitol building for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. And with the capable and intelligent Virginia Young running the halls for the St. Louis Post, it is doubtful Baghdad T will even get to do much more than take notes for Ms. Young. (NOTE: Is it a double demotion if you were a columnist at the paper you wrote before BEFORE the Springfield job, and then a columnist/editor at the Springfield paper, and suddenly a beat reporter?)
And Tony’s explanation for the sudden double demotion?
“I think it’s a great opportunity to do what I do best and focus on state politics and state government and do some good reporting,” Messenger said.
Yes, of course it’s a great opportunity. Wait, no, it’s not, unless you’re 25 and just out of J-school. See, Tony, Missourians aren’t as stupid as you think. We all know that once you get to be a columnist, especially one with the sorts of great editorial duties you had, you don’t suddenly move back to being the junior beat reporter in the capitol building. And, unless the parting was unfriendly, we doubt the Springfield News Leader would let the Columbia Tribune take first crack at exploring your “move” to the St. Louis Post. (Did anyone notice the St. Louis Paper barely announced Messenger’s arrival?)
Maybe the people paying the bills at the Springfield News Leader just realized what the rest of us realized a while back: That Baghdad Tony is a fabulist with his Stephen Glass moment waiting to happen. The big difference between Stephen Glass and Baghdad Tony, of course, is that Glass was a talented reporter with a problem, whereas Messenger was a, um, crappy reporter at a newspaper that just wanted him to deliver a good work product. Apparently he couldn’t live up to such high expectations, especially once his raison d’etat vanished when the Scott Eckersley saga got to be boring.
And by the way, Tony, while we’re sure your employers had plenty of reasons to let you go, we would like to point out that your grammar and punctuation sucks.
Related:
STL Post Dispatch: Post-Dispatch to eliminate 31 positions
MOPNS: (3/4/08) Face It Messenger, You Suck!
0 responses so far ↓
1 Kyle Wright // Mar 12, 2008 at 1:34 pm
You nailed it Scooter. They straight up canned his fat ass for being incompetent. There is no other explanation for the way this thing has been announced and he hasn’t posted anything on the News-Leader since.
I hope he enjoys being Young’s coffee jockey but my guess is he’ll get fired from that job within a year.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy
2 Evan Lane // Mar 12, 2008 at 1:35 pm
This is a total demotion. Wonder what he did to get fired from Springfield?
3 maximusbevo // Mar 13, 2008 at 10:50 am
Tony’s down fall came as a result of a debate in a public forum last week with local conservative radio host Vincent David Jericho.
Tony has degraded Mr. Jericho for years in his paper and blogs and finally Mr. Jericho and Messenger got together to debate on the issue of “immigration.”
However, Mr. Jericho informed the audience that Tony had intentionally mislead the community in a previous written editorial attacking Sheriff Jack Merritt.
Mr. Jericho provided facts to prove how Messenger had used deceptive tacits to attack the sheriff and when confronted with the evidence in public Messenger did not/could not respond because he knew it to be the truth.
Therefore, Mr. Messenger lost a lot of credibility with the community because his liberal bias was absolutely proven without a doubt by Mr. Jericho for the world to see.
So, there you go. Even the News-Leader knew that Messenger was damaged goods and could no longer write with any credibility. Tony will have to move on and try to dupe some other community with his liberal/partisan crusade.
Conservatives ought to give a big shout out of thanks to Mr. Jericho for exposing this fraud. Go to KSGF.com and listen to Jericho podcasts for more information on the scheister Messenger.
4 John Truesdell // Apr 29, 2008 at 10:20 am
He should be ran out of Journalism! He’s a disgrace to an honorable profession. The ficticious liberal hipe that he’s made up has hurt numerous innocent honest and descent people. Tony Messenger flatly doesn’t care! If you look back to his columns that supported ‘Child Molester’, Ken Storla you can easily see that Tony doesn’t know the Goats from the Sheep. Long before Storla fell into the opportunity to be Mayor of Clark, Tony thought it was his duty to see that Storla became Mayor. Most of the descent people from the Clark community already knew what type of person Storla was and had stopped him from reaching public office on numerous occasions. Tony helped to run off the few individuals that would freely serve the community at the cities office so that Storla could walk in and get elected being the only candidate running….. I had personally approached Messenger to inquire if he knew the history and nature of Storla’s past….he certainly did. He was proud to admit that he is a contrversal columnist and he thought his work was necessary for a ‘Free’ society.
‘Bu _ _ Sh _ _’!
Look where Storla is today! Storla couldn’t hide what he was….and Messenger can’t hide either!
5 Political Fix » Blog Archive » Political quiz of the day: How many toes does Tony have? // Oct 17, 2008 at 1:26 pm
[…] Here’s the latest from the Missouri GOP. I’ll let you make of it what you will. (P.S. Baghdad Tony has more than two toes, but apparently, yet another nickname). The Inconvenient Truth – Tony Two […]
6 Najwa Brown (Cryderman // Oct 7, 2012 at 11:08 am
Im glad he was fired cause to get paid for an opinion as heartless as Tonys will not be missed. Some years ago he wrote a long story on me and my failures but had no clue about me. I forgive Tony cause God has forgiven me however Ive learned God has the last say so..
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