Summit Daily Weighs in on Berwyn Firing

Dec 13, 2009  ·  11:28 AM  ·  permalink

I’m glad this was pointed out to me: on Thursday, December 10, 2009, Jim Morgan, publisher of the Summit Daily News, weighed in on the controversy around the firing of Bob Berwyn.

In it, Morgan denies that Berwyn was fired as a result of pressure from Vail Resorts and says that, when asked to comment by Denver Post columnist Susan Greene, he declined to do so as a matter of company policy.

Morgan goes on to give the paper’s reasons for firing Berwyn:

The reason Berwyn was terminated — and I have to be careful here because it is a personnel issue involving an individual — was not because of the column or because of the resulting fallout from it… . As would be the case with any employee, if there are circumstances symptomatic of a pattern of behavior documented in reviews over the course of time, then changes result.

Clear enough? Berwyn was fired because something happened as a result of something he did, and had done previously, which Summit Daily has documented.

Of course, Berwyn has Summit Daily over a barrel. If they reveal the contents of his personnel file which they say document the pattern of behavior which led to his dismissal, they are not only legally exposed as an employer, but are potentially compromising their integrity and independence as a news organization.

There is one possible solution: Bob Berwyn can ask for permission to publicly release his personnel file himself. The Summit Daily’s only role would be to provide Berwyn with a copy which should relieve them of their legal and journalistic culpability. In this way, concerned readers can judge for themselves the cause of Berwyn’s dismissal.