n the graveyard of shattered careers, there is a special section reserved for reporters whose bylines died by suicide.
The weapon deployed is, in every case, the same: their own unbridled bigotry.
The epitaphs, too, are identical: He whose career once lived is now dead proof: Hate doesn’t pay. It costs.
Strolling along the tombstones, we find the career of Roger Friedman. Once an entertainment writer for Fox News and The Hollywood Reporter, he made up for his inability to write by concocting anti-Scientology canards, and was kicked to the curb. Roger is now reduced to blogging anti-religious rants in a tiny corner of the internet, with no audience, no bullhorn and no platform.
“Despite the best efforts of many of our talented colleagues, we have been unable to develop a profitable business model.”
Oh, here’s an overgrown grave marker. Brushing aside the weeds, we find the shadowy career of Sean Craig. Writing for the “bad faith troll hole” otherwise known as The Daily Beast, he excreted a stream of pollution directed at Scientologists that swiftly heaved back on his bosses at the Beast, who were already hemorrhaging both readers and red ink. Sean and his bilious pen then suddenly disappeared about March of this year, and have not been heard from since.
In the mausoleum of misbegotten labors, we find, too, the cobwebbed vault containing the mortal career remains of Matt Belloni, erstwhile editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter. Matt never heard a bigoted, anti-Scientology spin he wasn’t eager to report. Under his baton, rabid anti-Scientologist Leah Remini was given free rein to spew canards about the religion despite her hatred having spawned hundreds of death threats, bomb threats, arson threats, and threats and acts of violence against Scientologists. Matt was last seen hosting an obscure blog for a tiny audience—but then, isn’t everyone in the journalistic afterlife?
In a nearby crypt, we find the decomposing career of ex-In Touch editor James Heidenry. James was so eager to exercise his bigotry that he breathlessly presented buddy Tony Ortega—a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-religious hate blogger—in the pages of his tabloid as an “expert” on Scientology, even while Ortega himself admits, “I’m not an expert [on Scientology].” When STAND, the religion’s anti-discrimination league, exposed James’ bigotry, his lawyer sent a cease and desist letter demanding that STAND League CEASE and DESIST associating James with his own magazine. (Hey, we get it. If we were James, we’d want to distance ourselves from our own hog slop, too.)
Treading the same well-worn path to perdition as his predecessors in infamy, James is now out of the editing business and in with a “content creation” outfit called Colosseum Productions, a name presumably chosen for the vivid picture it paints of himself—a crumbling relic.
But by far the largest acreage in this grim boneyard is the huge family-sized plot occupied by Dan Wakeford’s career and its legions of fiascos.
Aptly dubbed the “Grim Reaper of the Tabloids,” his scythe of hate-based journalism cuts down every periodical he touches—leaving behind disasters critics liken to the Titanic and the 1929 stock market crash.
Dan is a man whose résumé reads like Typhoid Mary’s hit list:
- Executive editor of In Touch, then fired. The tabloid later folds.
- Editor-in-chief of Life & Style, then fired. The tabloid later folds.
- Editor-in-chief of The Messenger. The online tabloid immediately folds. Both he and the start-up rag sink in less than a year—to the tune of a $43-million net loss. (“Meltdown,” “pandemonium,” “out of touch,” “outraged staffers” are among the choice phrases used to describe Dan’s “disastrous stint.”)
- And now, as we all knew it would, the bell tolls for Us Weekly. According to an insider, he was “forced out” as editor-in-chief because he couldn’t deliver what the mag wanted: headline-grabbing exclusives with top Hollywood stars. Instead, he delivered psychotic money-grubbing religious apostates with bigoted axes to grind, that interested no one at all.
A typical eulogy delivered by a spokesperson on behalf of one of the many tabloids strangled by Dan’s hate and incompetence was: “Despite the best efforts of many of our talented colleagues, we have been unable to develop a profitable business model.”
Want to find yourself unemployed, shunned, relegated to the lowest circle of journalistic hell—a blog with zero followers?
The first step to running a “profitable business model” is not employing a bigot like Dan Wakeford, since he is a human torpedo that sinks every tabloid he touches.
But Dan Wakeford just couldn’t help himself. Dan’s last promotional video touting an Us Weekly anti-religious cover story can serve as his professional epitaph.
Between 2005 and 2013, Dan’s In Touch and Life & Style ran some 30 anti-Scientology propaganda pieces, courtesy of sources like the bigot who had stolen $15,490 from the Church he was now being well-financed to gripe about.
Dan—like fellow losers Roger Friedman, Sean Craig, Matt Belloni and James Heidenry—is living proof that anti-religious bigotry is a sure-fire dumpster fire for any journalistic platform, and a road that leads right to professional ruin.
Need to ditch your periodical as a business loss for tax purposes? Hire Dan the Hater. He’s cheaper than a flood or hurricane. And he’ll get the job done just as fast.
Us Weekly, you were warned last August that hiring Dan Wakeford fresh off his Messenger massacre would make you the latest victim of a serial killer of truth, justice and journalism. But would you listen?
And to any would-be hatchet-wielding reporters: Want to find yourself unemployed, shunned, relegated to the lowest circle of journalistic hell—a blog with zero followers? Or worse: ONE follower, who hates you? Spread anti-Scientology bigotry. Spread hatred of faith all around like butter on toast. Season it with the worst lies you and your friends can concoct, and distribute it far and wide.
And watch the doors slam shut on your once-promising career.
