Why has the New York Post marshaled at least 16 reporters to bedevil a single homeless man named John Tucker? According to a current Post employee, the person directing the paper’s unbelievably vicious coverage is none other than alleged pig-fucker, proven sink-pisser, and sitting editor-in-chief Col Allan, who is apparently motivated by the fact that Tucker lives in his own neighborhood, the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

According to the same employee (who sent the email copied at the bottom of this post):

  • Post staffers are currently divided between feeling “openly disgusted” or fatally resigned to their boss’s sadism.
  • Allan actually placed more than 16 reporters on covering Tucker’s whereabouts; not everyone received a byline or reporting credit.
  • Staffers’ “main responsibility” is “to keep Col happy” (which, again, means repeatedly afflicting a defenseless human being on behalf of a well-compensated 62-year-old editor who, despite his habit of exerting dominance over subordinates by pissing in his office’s sink, apparently cannot countenance the sight of another man pissing in his own neighborhood).

Here’s the full email:

From: [Redacted]
Date: Tue, Jul 14, 2015
To: Keenan Trotter

Col’s the only person I know of who gives a shit. Almost all of the reporters who worked on the epic bum piece either don’t care (just do whatever they’re told) or are openly disgusted by the whole thing. Believe it or not more reporters than the ones you listed actually worked on this and were not given bylines. So the list goes on.

Maybe one or two are actually demented enough to buy this BS. But that’s it. Just one or two. A few are just young copy kids trying to get experience. The editors just want to keep Col happy. That’s basically everyone’s main responsibility.

Also, the bum peed in Col’s neighborhood. So there’s a huge NIMBY factor.

The Post’s homeless coverage doesn’t seem to count many fans among its sister outlets within News Corp and 21st Century Fox, either. On Twitter, a Wall Street Journal correspondent called the coverage “terrible and mean”; Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz even retweeted a Times reporter who sarcastically referred to the Post stories as “serious journalism.”

If you’re a current Post employee and have more to say about Col Allan’s undisguised class warfare against New York City’s homeless population, please do get in touch.

Email/chat: trotter@gawker.com · PGP key + fingerprint · DM: @jktrotter · Photo credit: AP