Mystery at 'Newsday': Editing Troika In or Out?

Is it time already to update that list of top newspapers editors who've fallen victim to the industry's turmoil? The answer is bizarrely unclear.

The New York Post reported over the weekend that Newsday editor John Mancini and his top two lieutenants, managing editors Deborah Henley and Debby Krenek were apparently out, with rumors circulating that they'd been fired by Cablevision chief Jim Dolan, the paper's newish owner. But "apparently" is the operative word here.

Newsday's own follow-up report today suggests -- in a curiously equivocal way -- that the Post story was inaccurate. While the Post had cited the three editors' absence from the newsroom on Thursday and Friday as evidence of their termination, Newsday says Henley and Krenek -- although not, notably, Mancini -- were both, in fact, on the job. The fact that the three had all disappeared from the company's voicemail system also seems to have been a red herring, the result of a system-wide outage.

Yet Newsday's reporter couldn't get any confirmation that any of the three editors are still employed, or a comment from anyone involved. I'm waiting for a call back from the paper's spokeswoman.

The Post says the editorial ouster -- if real -- may have been connected to Newsday's coverage of a sexual-harassment lawsuit against New York Knick Eddy Curry. (Cablevision owns the team.) If true, it wouldn't be the first time Jim Dolan was accused of using blunt force to punish critical press outlets. In 2004, Cablevision's MSG Network fired announcer Marv Albert after Dolan allegedly bristled at Albert's criticism of the Knicks' management.