Maine sports columnist ousted

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

Veteran Maine sports columnist Tom Caron

has been given his walking papers.

"Nothing lasts forever. And so this is my final column for the Portland Press Herald."

Caron wrote that after 10 years he's been given the boot.

"In 2023 the Press Herald was sold to the National Trust for Local News, a group dedicated to preserving and strengthening local news," Caron wrote.

Then he drilled down even further into his chamber-of-commerce mode rather than admitting that he'd been axed.

"It’s an impressive group determined to continue the newspaper’s history of journalistic excellence," he blathered. "It is trying to go against the considerable headwinds facing local papers."

It gets even more nauseating for us poor discriminating readers, if you can believe.

"They need their resources to fight the good fight," he said in his next wet kiss to the people who just fired him.

But there's even more obsequious finger-in-the-mouth lovemaking, courtesy of Caron the supposed sports guy.

"This paper will focus on local stories that you can’t find anywhere else, as it should," the perspiring Caron lathered.

Have we had enough of Tom Caron kissing up to the suits who just gave him the axe?

Like, seriously?

He's the latest in a series of budget-cutback decisions since the so-called non-profit bought the state's largest daily newspaper and a string of weeklies.

Caron is the only ousted columnist who turned his dismissal into a public love-making session.

The trust has already done away with several columns and feature sections.

The incongruity of the so-called "local" trust cutting local news isn't lost on Steve Robinson, editor-in-chief of The Maine Wire.

"Good grief," Robinson said. "The irony is too rich for me. The 'Trust for Local News' is getting rid of all things local."

Editor note: Ted Cohen is a former longtime Portland Press Herald staffer.