Hartford Courant Consumer Columnist Fired For Pissing Off Advertiser [Newspapers]

Hartford Courant Consumer Columnist Fired For Pissing Off Advertiser [Newspapers]: "

Consumer affairs columnist George Gombossy has worked for the Hartford Courant since 1969—longer than most Consumerist readers have been alive. Yesterday was his last day at the paper, but he wasn't caught up in one of the rounds of buyouts and layoffs hitting the newspaper industry. Gombossy claims that he was "was fired for doing [his] job," after his last column exposed the bedbug-infested mattresses sold by a major Courant advertiser.

Gombossy is probably best remembered here at Consumerist for exposing the dastardly employees-only price-matching web site practices of Best Buy back in 2007.

He wrote his Watchdog column for the Courant for three years, and was the paper's business editor for thirteen years before that. So what did he do to justify being shown the door?

The last column, which the paper refused to run, is about a Connecticut Attorney General investigation into mattress emporium Sleepy's. The chain is accused of selling used mattresses as new, and—even worse—selling used mattresses infested with bedbugs as new. Ew.

We're sorry to hear of yet another newspaper losing its consumer columnist, and are particularly annoyed (though not surprised) to hear of this collision of advertising and editorial. Consumerist, like our sister publication Consumer Reports, doesn't accept any advertising.

Gombossy is continuing his column as an independent blog, Connecticut Watchdog—check it out. He's looking for advertisers. Sleepy's has not yet signed up.

Sleepy's: The bedbug column The Courant refused to publish about its prime advertiser [Connecticut Watchdog]
Hartford Courant Losing Its 'Watchdog' [The Laurel]