You may know Paul Oberjuerge as the sports columnist for the San Bernardino Sun or may know him because I kinda ripped him up a while ago for writing, what I thought, was a pretty crappy column about LA Times columnist Christine Daniels in which he said she was “not an attractive woman.”

I took him to task for that, I believe the term “cautionary tale” came up, but I take no pleasure in reporting that Oberjuerge was just let go by the Sun which just happens to be–all together now–a MediaNews newspaper. Apparently MediaNews owner, Dean Singleton, who recently gutted our Press-Telegram, is really interested in alternative journalism, i.e. finding an alternative to having actual people write stories and columns.

According to Oberjuerge, who, I’ve been told is originally from Long Beach and who blogged about his firing, MediaNews is actually eliminating the position of sports columnist for their Inland Empire papers. This despite the fact that sports columnists are many times the best known and most read writers on any paper, ones that readers tend to strike up a relationship with.

But, again, that’s getting into human territory, a place Singleton appears to be most uncomfortable. He seems bent on eliminating as many positions as possible and, we assume, developing a robo-race of uber-writers who question nothing and ask for nothing . Singleton should think about developing readers with the exact same qualities.

Tags: christine daniels, dean singleton, LA Times, Long Beach Press-Telegram, medianews, Paul Oberjuerge, San Bernardino Sun