Media freaks may recall that the first time one company tried to own both the Cleveland Scene and Cleveland Free Times, the city’s two alternative weeklies, the deal was nixed by the DOJ, who called them out on the antitrust violation. Somehow, though, Times-Shamrock got a free pass when it bought up Cleveland Scene and Free Times last summer and then merged the two. Could the feds free pass have anything to do with the fact that Times-Shamrock CEO Matt Haggerty recently worked for the DOJ as an assistant district attorney? Nah.

I loved working for the Free Times when it was competing with Cleveland Scene. The competition kept us sharp and hungry. And the best part about the alt-weeklies were that they were free. Here you go, Cleveland, a present just for you, every Wednesday!

One the last things I heard discussed by upper-management at Cleveland Scene before I left suggests Scene’s free-ness may be coming to an end. Circulation is dropping as online content (via an embarrassingly-primitive website) is being pushed to the forefront. In a conversation over bagels not long after half my friends lost their jobs due to the merger, Times-Shamrock exec W. Scott Lynett started talking up the wonderful idea of charging readers for online content. “I think a reader would want to pay $3 to read a feature article,” he said. No one at the table--including yours truly--had the cajones to tell him he was out of his friggin gord.

Anyway, it was enough of a dash of crazy sauce for me to want to look into the company a little more. During merger meetings, execs served us much propaganda about how Times-Shamrock and their daily rag, the Scranton Times-Tribune, are champions of journalistic integrity. Spiking a story simply because you can’t afford a lawsuit is one thing. Here’s a few other items of interest I quickly discovered.

--The Times-Tribune has a lax view of ethics. Seems the Haggerty and Lynetts have fallen in love with local politician Bob Casey Jr. They and their company have invested tens of thousands of dollars in his campaigns, sometimes signing two checks in a single day to avoid those silly donation-limit- laws. It’s made their hometown readers question how fair their political reporting could be (geez, even the Plain Dealer folks know better than that).

--Their editor is none other than disgraced former Cincinnati  Enquirer editor Larry Beaupre, a man I personally discovered to be quite repugnant during a conference call earlier this year when he could not quite cover his disdain for alt-weekly writing. I imagine they at least got him at a decent price.

The more I learn about this company, the happier I am to be on the outside looking in.