Reflections

Journalist Fired After 40 Years With Same Paper

Posted by on Aug 16, 2009 | 9 Comments

A CT newspaper by the name of the Hartford Courant has fired one of its reporters who had served the paper for over 40 years. The journalist by the name of George Gombossy reported about an investigation that the attorney general made about a mattress seller. It seems that there were allegations that the mattress seller by the name of Sleepy’s sold used mattresses as new. The allegations also included that some mattresses were also bug infested.

But the article was never printed and Mr. Gombossy was terminated. Why you ask? Because Sleepy’s was a large advertiser for the Hartford Courant. In an article it also states that:

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says he has launched an investigation into consumer complaints that Sleepy’s sold mattresses or box springs that were used instead of new, and in one case infested with bedbugs.

Blumenthal said last month that he has up to 10 recent complaints against Sleepy’s, the largest mattress chain in the United States, with 74 stores in Connecticut.

“We have received a number of complaints, up to 10, that mattresses maybe have been used, with groves and deep depressions,” Blumenthal said in an interview with me.

Prior to that interview I asked Blumenthal to check to see whether any other mattress retailers had complaints filed against them of giving customers used mattresses or of bed bug infestation.

“Sleepy’s was the only one” the attorney general replied.

But it gets better:

Blumenthal’s investigation into Sleepy’s operations is the second in Connecticut since 2004 when the company paid a $4,000 fine to consumer protection.

Two years ago Sleepy’s, according to the Better Business Bureau, paid a $200,000 fine to New York City consumer officials as part of a settlement.

This could explain why the company did not want any more bad press. It appears that they have had problems in the past as well.

Unfortunately the truth may have been buried by the Hartford Courant, but blogs around the Internet are carrying the story and are supporting Mr. Gombossy.

Consumerist story

CT. Watchdog

  • zenium

    Welcome to the 21st century where media management does not have the backbone to stand up to advertisement pressure.

  • Gary Bing

    Some mattress retailers went even so far as to pay you for your old mattress. It costs them to dispose of them along with customer returns. You can buy a demonstrator bed but I would advise against, some of the stories I have witnessed first hand. At the beginning of the decade Mattress Discounters were the largest in the nation. When an employee told me of all the work she did for them with uncompensated overtime, I suggested she file a class action and she will be well compensated as the primary plaintiff in the case. She didn’t apparently do it as someone else jumped the gun from the Bay area lots of sharky lawyers there.) The lawsuit was $60+ million they went bankrupt paying past employees 10 cents on the dollar. Mattress Discounters paid for full page ads in the La Times once a week for about a decade. I seriously doubt that story was unreported by them. Mattress Discounters is a mere shell of itself headquartered in Maryland. I don’t know how the company even survived given it’s settlement and subsequent bankruptcy, cheating out on it’s employees. Although Mattress Discounter was a fairly large account for the LA Times, it also being a mere shell of itself, the loss of that one account is hardly to blame. And yes, Virginia, mattress dealers all the time fielded calls from people seeking a deal on used mattress even before the economic downturn, which of course are not available by law.

  • Gary Bing

    P.S. I know an employee who was fired for going to the bathroom because he did not notify management. So cry me a river.

  • http://teejayhanton.com teejayhanton

    You can also setup an email address to email photos to your Picasa account. If you click the gear and go to Photo Settings in Picasa, on the General tab you’ll see an “Upload photos by email” section. Just set up emailing the photos in Instagram to that address and you should save yourself a few steps.

    I say “should” because I can’t seem to get anything to autopost anywhere in my Picasa album, whether through Posterous, emailing, or whatever. Quite annoying, actually. But, it might work for somebody else.

    • Steve Farrell

      tried the same thing, but no joy. would be a much more elegant work around…if it worked.

      • http://teejayhanton.com teejayhanton

        I sent an email to Posterous help about it because I can’t get anything from Posterous to sync with Picasa. They said they’ve been hearing a lot of issues, so I’m wondering if they’re doing updates on the Picasa side that messes with their APIs or changes how some of the incoming emails/pictures are handled … hopefully it resolves itself pretty quickly.

        • Steve Farrell

          i think i figured out why: when you email a photo via instagram it actually is put into a template in the body of the email. picasa doesn’t pluck things out of the body, it’s looking at the attachments and the subject line. i did a test of emailing a photo to picasa with the photo in the body and the photo as an attachment. Attachment works. So if you could find a way to just output the photo as a straight attachment it might work, but the iphone email prog always puts it in the body.

    • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

      Instagram email has never worked for me. :(

  • Adam Nicholas Burke

    FYI – This also works for Picplz, for all you Android-users out there.