Suicide and sacking rock top paper Options

[EmmalieV]

very interesting news , sad and mysterious.

MIAMI: One of the US's most prestigious newspapers, The Miami Herald, was in crisis last night after a former city councillor killed himself in its offices and an award-winning columnist was sacked for allegedly breaching state law.

Arthur Teele, 59, a former councillor facing 26 corruption charges, walked into the foyer of the Herald, put a gun in his mouth and shot himself in front of a security guard.

Within hours the newspaper had sacked leading columnist Jim DeFede, who had admitted secretly recording a telephone conversation with Mr Teele shortly before his death. In Florida it is illegal to record telephone calls without the subject's permission.

"What Jim did was not in keeping with the ethics of our profession," publisher Jesus Diaz Jr told Herald staff. "Added to that, it was probably illegal."

Earlier, DeFede recounted his interview with Mr Teele and defended his decision to tape it. "I told Teele: 'You've got a good attorney. If you're innocent, the truth would come out' ... I thought he might commit suicide ... It was a very tense situation. I was shaking. I wanted to preserve the record. I knew it was an important moment. I rolled the tape on impulse."






The suicide ended the life of one of Miami's most colourful and scandal-plagued politicians. Last week Mr Teele was charged on 26 counts of fraud and money laundering. He was accused of helping an electrical firm win $US20million ($26 million) in contracts at Miami International Airport.

Mr Teele was a decorated Vietnam War veteran and a political heavyweight in Miami's black community, but his public life had come under scrutiny after he was convicted in March of threatening a police officer during another corruption investigation.

Mr Teele was said to be heavily in debt from legal costs and upset by what he felt was media persecution. One television reporter said Mr Teele asked him recently: "Why does the media hate me so much?"

Although Mr Teele always wore a smiling face in public, he was known for a fiery temper. He once punched a political lobbyist in the face.

Florida officials say allegations of corruption against Mr Teele began to surface in 1997. Governor Jeb Bush removed him from his position on the Miami City Commission last year pending the outcome of police investigations.

Diaz said the suicide would not cause the newspaper to flinch in its news coverage.

"I don't know why he chose the Miami Herald building," he said. "I can surmise he was trying to deliver a message to us that our coverage had something to do with his decision. What we did in our reporting of Mr Teele's situation was simply our job, our duty. The next time we will report the story and the facts as we know them to be at the time."

He said police had requested the Herald turn over DeFede's tape, but the newspaper has refused to hand over unpublished notes and Mr Teele had requested the conversation be off the record.

"We're going to honour that," Diaz said.

"We expect we will get subpoenaed and we will say we will not meet the subpoena and we'll end up in court."

Whats your opinion on it?

[parallel]

I didn't really get it. But Mr. Teele or whatever, sounds like he had some issues or something.