The Message

Bain says Wayne Laugesen, the Weekly's editor, purchased McCammon's story with the intention of localizing it himself, but ran out of time; Laugesen had already announced that he was stepping down as editor, which he did about a month later. According to Bain, Laugesen gave him the story on January 20 and asked him to have it ready for the January 23 cover. "I got right on it," Bain says. "I got quotes from both sides of the issue -- former members of the Sierra Club from Boulder County who were very unhappy with them, and longtime members from Boulder County who were very happy with them." After he turned in the story, Laugesen wrote a new opening paragraph that Bain found to be "a bit inflammatory and goading. It was written in a style I wouldn't use and said things I wouldn't say." Bain suggested that Laugesen put his own name in the byline and says he "also thought it wasn't fair to the person who wrote the original story. I thought his name should be in the byline, too." Laugesen disagreed, and because Bain was in line for a full-time writing position that he expected to become official in April, he didn't feel he could pitch too much of a fit. "The paper ran it with only my byline, over my protestations," Bain says.

Laugesen, who is contributing occasional columns to the Weekly, has a hazy memory about what happened with the Sierra Club story, but in a heartwarming example of forthrightness, he takes responsibility anyway. "There was never any intent to pass off someone else's intellectual property as our own, because that's wrong. So evidently, I was just sloppy in my work," Laugesen says. He adds, "Ron would never try to pass off someone else's work as his own. He has far too much integrity for that. I'm certain that this was an error or a misunderstanding on the part of the editor at the time, and that was me."

Unfortunately for Bain, the job at the Weekly he'd been anticipating failed to materialize after Laugesen resigned, so he's looking for work. Potential employers should look upon Laugesen's words above as a letter of recommendation.