Just getting caught up on more than a few weeks worth of media maneuverings in Tampa Bay.
The Tampa Tribune’s former Pinellas bureau chief and political columnist Rick Barry has retired. The Trib closed that section down earlier this year, and Barry took a transfer to be transportation writer, a gig he didn’t want. The daily drive from his home in Sarasota, however, was no fun even for a transportation writer, so he cashed it in.
The man who was once No. 2 on the editorial board at the St. Petersburg Times, Robert Friedman, has likewise quietly slipped away from the MSM. He is caring for elderly parents in Georgia, and his wicked and funny voice is missed already. He had to see the handwriting on the wall that put Tim Nickens (editor Paul Tash’s favorite) in line to assume the editorial page throne. Here is one of his best columns. I loved him, even as he once skewered the crap out of my then-business partner.
Fox 13’s morning correspondent Brian Goff has also retired. Veteran reporter Warren Elly (the best reporter there) must’ve drawn the short straw to get up at 5 a.m. every day to provide live feeds to Good Day Tampa Bay hosts Russell Rhodes and Anne Dwyer, although we’re told it is a temporary assignment.
And Bill Maxwell is returning to the St. Pete Times editorial pages. Maxwell was a lively and unpredictable voice who pissed off a whole lot of people, both those who needed it and those who didn’t, as well as quite a few folks in the Times newsroom itself. He left his full-time job at the Times in 2004 to return to teaching, at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He's been writing a column for the Tuscaloosa News.
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2006.