Barrett Tryon has been placed on administrative leave from the Colorado Springs Gazette after he refused to remove a post about the newspaper’s sale from his Facebook wall. Tryon is a former reporter for Colorado Springs ABC-affiliate KRDO.
Tryon, who has worked at the Gazette since April, was a reporter and digital content director at KRDO from 2010-11. After the sale of the Gazette and six other papers was announced earlier this week, Tryon linked to a Los Angeles Times article on his personal Facebook wall, highlighting a paragraph that said the new owner “hopes to spin off the smaller papers in separate deals.”
Tryon was contacted by the paper’s director of content, Carmen Boles, and told the post violated the company’s social media policy, which charges that employees must “protect the company’s goodwill, brands and business reputation.” Tryon refused to remove the post. (Read the entire exchange between Tryon and Boles at JimRomenesko.com.)
Tryon wrote on Twitter yesterday that he has been placed on “administrative leave” as a result of the Facebook post.
Both KRDO and KOAA reported on the Gazette’s sale (the NBC-affiliated KOAA has a content partnership with the paper). None of the local stations, including KRDO, have reported on Tryon’s story.