Hartford Courant and Fox 61 top editor Jeffrey Levine has been fired, publisher Richard Graziano reportedly confirmed today.
Courant/Fox61 Publisher Graziano is scheduled to meet this afternoon with news staff to inform them of Levine’s fate and to explain that Naedine Hazell will be the top Courant editor and that Coleen Marren and Andrew Julien will be top television editors.
Courant sources said that Levine was called into Graziano’s fourth floor suite Wednesday morning where he was told that his job was eliminated. The two had apparently been fighting over staffing issues, including who to hire as an internet guru.
According to the version making its way around in the newsroom Wednesday night, Levine walked out of the meeting before Graziano could continue the conversation. Levine told people he was leaving the building because of a family emergency and has not returned as of 10:15 this morning.
Levine had been at The Courant and Fox 61 for about 18 months with Friday being his last day.
Levine, who was instrumental in ending my position at The Courant after 40 years, is disliked by many in the newsroom because he came from a marketing as opposed to news background and several news people felt that he was untruthful at times. He was also seen as arrogant.
Prior to The Courant Levine was a senior vice president at the Sun-Sentinel in Florida.
When he was hired at The Courant he immediately fired managing editor Barbara Roessner and executive editor Cliff Teutsch quit after their first in depth meeting.
Levine was reprimanded a year ago for being part of a group of employees who set up a system to use material from other newspapers without attribution or falsely claiming it was done by The Courant.
The Courant was sued by the Journal Inquirer in Manchester as the result and accused to stealing its work products.
