A reporter for the weekly Dover Post newspaper was fired Monday for offensive comments made on his personal weblog.
Matt Donegan, a copy editor and reporter for the newspaper, was fired by Dover Post Editor Don Flood after a reader reported the blog entries to Sussex County radio talk-show host Dan Gaffney.
A producer for Gaffney's show called Flood on Monday to inform him about the blog, and Gaffney aired some of the comments on his show.
The producer "asked if I'd seen this. I didn't know anything about it," Flood said.
"I looked at the site, and sure enough it was there. Immediately afterward I verified with [Donegan] that it was his site and this is what he had written," Flood said. "And at that point I fired him."
Flood said some of the blog entries were "extremely offensive and just contrary to what we believe here."
Donegan, 24, said his firing is "a freedom-of-speech issue, and I don't think I was treated fairly in this case."
"What I wrote ... was rude, but it doesn't make it wrong," he said.
Donegan said he has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen and the Electronic Frontier Foundation about his firing, and is notifying local bloggers that they could see their rights violated.
Donegan said his blog, which is on the Myspace.com Web site, "is meant to be funny. I don't see how anyone can take this seriously."
Under club memberships, Donegan listed the "National Organization for Men Against Amazonian Masterhood" -- or NOMAAM. That fictional organization was featured on the television show "Married ... With Children."
He also posted a fake "death list" that included the creator of the first reality TV show and every driver who goes under the speed limit while in the left lane.
The blog features many sexual references, along with a complaint about Donegan's black neighbors partying late into the night Jan. 15 because they didn't have to get up for work the following day: Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
"I bet James Earl Ray [King's assassin] was woken up by black people yelling pointlessly in the streets the night before he killed your civil rights leader," Donegan wrote.
Donegan, who worked for the Dover Post for 2 1/2 years, said he simply was complaining about his neighbors depriving him of sleep on a night when he had been sick.
"I'm not a racist. I think everyone will be able to tell you that," he said.
Editor Flood, however, said the firing is not a free-speech issue.
"He has a right to free speech, certainly," Flood said. However, he added, Donegan's postings were "just so beyond the pale he could not possibly represent us."
Contact J.L. Miller at 678-4271 or jlmiller@delawareonline.com.
