Morgan owned the Maine Times and Casco Bay Weekly, both of which are now defunct.
Lael Morgan tells E&P's Lucia Moses that buyers have been calling since Casco Bay Weekly was shuttered two weeks ago. Morgan blames the economy and the Portland Phoenix for the weekly's closure. "We haven't had a national ad since they arrived," she tells E&P.
Casco Bay Weekly's co-founders, Monte Paulsen and Gary Santaniello, mourn the closure of the alternative newsweekly they opened in 1988. "It was glorious," Paulsen says of the early days in Portland, Maine, when the staff delivered the paper by themselves and the photographer worked in the staff bathroom. The paper closed Nov. 21, unable to stem financial losses and fight off competition from the Portland Phoenix.
A battle of words still rages in Portland, Maine, two weeks after Dodge Morgan fired most of the editorial staff at Casco Bay Weekly. Editor Chris Busby says Morgan was a “philanthropist” who suddenly panicked about the paper’s losing money. Morgan and his ex-wife, Lael Morgan, say Busby and his all-male staff were insubordinate and hostile. Not only that, Lael Morgan says someone peed into a trash bag full of files found after the firings. Not us, insists a furious Busby.
Dodge Morgan, owner of the Casco Bay Weekly, has fired the alt-weekly's editor, deputy editor and both staff writers, the Portland Press Herald reports. Morgan tells the Press Herald the paper has been losing money for more than a year. He says the paper will keep printing despite the layoffs. When asked how, Morgan responds, "That's Lael's problem." Lael Morgan, his ex-wife, is the weekly's publisher.
"Please don't eat at McDonalds," begs Chris Barry, who went undercover to work at one of the chain's locations in Portland, Maine. Warning: Don't read this Casco Bay Weekly story after a meal, especially if you dined on fast food.
