Corcoran: 'I Was Not Fired...I Quit!'
In response to our article, Ellen of the newshounds posted a comment claiming that their site had "severed all ties" with guest-blogger Bill Corcoran. Mr Corcoran subsequently posted a reply to Ellen giving his side of the story, but because of the limitations of haloscan comments, his statement was only partially published.
Mr Corcoran has sent an email completing his comments with the part that did not get published, so we will here present his side of the story in its entirety, and in his own words:
Johnny: I've read all the comments, especially those from Ellen at Newshounds, and I feel it is now time to set the record straight.
I was not FIRED. I QUIT.
The problems started several months ago when I wrote to Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post to tell her I thought she had been used as a guest on "Fox News Watch." Ms. Sklar told me I could write her ONLY if I had a news tip for her. Then Ellen, my arch enemy at Newshounds, jumped in to the rescue of Rachel Sklar and supposedly talked to her and told her they were thinking of firing me.
I continued to post a guest post every Sunday morning on Newshounds, and on Dec. 16 and Dec. 23 my guest post pulled in over 1,150 comments each. That is a record for Newhounds post which usually average about 50 to 100 comments.
The problem that caused me to QUIT was when I could not get into the comments section of my own post on Newshounds. I kept getting a message that read: "Banned by webmaster. Your comment will not be posted." I wrote countless letters to Newshounds, and to my editor Marie Therese, asking why I was "BANNED" from my own post on Newshounds, but I could still go on any other Newshounds post and make comments.
I was told by Ellen it was an AOL problem. I called AOL and they assured me they had nothing to do with blocking me from my own guest blog. I was told it was a computer gltich by Marie Therese and yet when I asked why I couldn't post on my own guest blog, but I had no problem with posting comments on any other Newshounds post, they failed to answer me. I did everything they told me to do. I shutdown my computer. Restarted it and stood on my head, but still I was getting the message: "Banned by webmaster. Your comments will not be posted."
I tried writing Haloscan who monitors the Newshounds site, but because I was not an official Newshound staffer I was told by Haloscan they could not comment on my complaint. I asked Marie Therese and Ellen to look into the Haloscan situations, and they said they would but I heard nothing except getting a letter from another NewsHound lady, Deborah, saying it was most likely a computer glitch. I wrote back saying I could accept the glitch excuse, by why was I BANNED ONLY from my own post but none of the other Newshounds posts. It didn't make any sense to me then, and still doesn't.
Then miraculously last week I suddenly was able to post on my own post from December 23. My post from Dec. 23 can be found here: My post from Dec. 23 is: http://tinyurl.com/237qk3 on News Hounds and the whopping 1,156 comments posted to my post as can be seen here: http://www.haloscan.com/comments/newshounds/13542/.
However as soon as I was able to get back on my own post and make some comments, I suddenly was "BANNED" again. I was still able to make comments on other Newshounds posts, but not my own.
It appeared to me as the people at Newshounds were jealous of the tremendous following I had built up. Newshounds claims they have 18,000 "views/hits" to their website everyday. From my own personal experience as a guest blogger on Newshounds that figure is very suspect because I have noticed that even when I was pulling in over 1,150 comments to my post it was just a handul of people posting comments. There are about 30 to 50 people who post comments on a post like mine, but because they post comment after comment it appears there are a lot more people posting comments than there really are. I might add the same holds true for all the other Newshounds posts.
Finally, I have yet to hear from Newshounds as to why I could NOT post comments on my own guest post, but I could go to any other Newshounds post and place a comment in the comment section.
There will be more as conditions warrant.
--Bill Corcoran
