Former Press editor's new paper to fold

The Baltimore Examiner, established three years ago to compete with The Baltimore Sun, is closing on Feb. 15, according to the Associated Press and many other news organizations.

That means its editor, Frank Keegan, will be hitting the pavement again at a truly atrocious time for journalists to be looking for work.

Keegan was the editor here from the mid-1980s until shortly before the 1994 sale of The Bristol Press to the rapacious Pennsylvania company I don't want to name anymore because I'm trying to forget its existence.

After leaving Bristol, he served as the editor of the daily in Easton, Penn. and at The Connecticut Post before landing in Baltimore, where he's had a colorful run.

I always liked Keegan, partly because he didn't hesitate to tell mayors to "f-- off" and partly because he had this old-fashioned notion that what we do is really important. I hope that a great opportunity opens for him somewhere now.

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Prosecutors drop charges against Keegan, former Press editor

Frank Keegan, a former Press editor who's now in charge of the Baltimore Examiner, won't face prosecution over an ugly incident involving a neighbor, a shotgun and cops who were out to get him. Prosecutors decided to drop the case, according to this story.
I never had any doubt he'd beat the rap.

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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

Former Press editor makes the news

Note: this piece contains a curse word. If you are easily offended, don't read it.

My old boss, former Bristol Press Editor Frank Keegan, got arrested late Wednesday in Baltimore for allegedly pointing a shotgun at his next-door neighbor and his family.
According to reports in the Baltimore papers, Keegan, 58, was roused after 11 p.m. by someone pounding on his door. It was his row house neighbor, angry that Keegan's cigarette smoke was wafting through the windows or walls enough to make his 3-year-old daughter ill. The man's wife and daughter were with him.
Keegan, who may or may not have known who was at the door, called out, "You fucking lunatics, get away from my door."
At that point, the papers said (quoting from a police report), that the neighbor shouted back, "Look at what you're doing to my daughter."
The neighbor then told police he saw Keegan holding "what appeared" to be a long gun. Keegan "racked the gun in a manner consistent with a shotgun and shouldered the weapon, pointing it at the entire Ayers family from inside the house and behind the glass of the first-floor window," the report said, according to press reports.
The neighbor, who was holding his daughter, "reportedly raised his right arm and said, 'Whoa Whoa!' and backed away."
Keegan wound up in handcuffs.
Now I can attest that Keegan has a temper, but I can't imagine him deliberately aiming a shotgun at a little girl.
The other part of this tale is that Keegan's paper, the Baltimore Examiner, has been ripping into police overtime lately. So I suspect the cops were only too happy to have the editor in their clutches.
In any case, I'm on Keegan's side. The man is an old school editor, gruff and temperamental. But he's a damn good journalist and a solid citizen.
If you want to read more, here's the Baltimore Sun's story