Who says editorial writers are just a few steps behind the dodo bird on their way to extinction?

(Note to self: Bad idea to use “dodo” and “editorial writers” in the same sentence.)

For most journalists – and editorial writers in particular – there is nothing worse than being irrelevant. You know the old saying: “Love me or hate me, just don’t ignore me.”

That’s why editorial writers from across the nation couldn’t help but take note of the bizarre arrest last week of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his senior aide on charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery.

Not so much because the brazen, 51-year-old governor is accused of trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder.

But because he had the audacity to try to influence the firing of critical editorial writers at his hometown newspaper, The Chicago Tribune.

As if editorial writers didn’t have enough to worry about these days in the job-shriveling newspaper industry.

Blagojevich is accused by federal prosecutors of threatening to undermine the sale of Wrigley Field – the home of the Chicago Cubs that is owned by the newspaper’s financially strapped parent, the Tribune Co. – unless the newspaper got rid of the editorial writers who had become a thorn in his side.

Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, are believed to have delivered that message to Nils Larsen, a Tribune Co. executive vice president and financial adviser to CEO and Chairman Sam Zell.

Here is what the Democratic governor told Harris in a wiretapped telephone call on Nov. 4, according to excerpts of that conversation contained in a federal affidavit: “Our recommendation is fire all those (expletive) people, get ‘em the (expletive) out of there and get us some editorial support.”

Who says politicians don’t read the local papers?

As you might suspect, this made quite the celebrity in editorial page circles of John P. McCormick, The Chicago Tribune’s deputy editorial page editor and longtime critic of the governor, whose name actually turned up in the 76-page document.

For his part, McCormick, who had called for the governor’s impeachment on more than one occasion, said he was surprised that Blagojevich tried to have him fired.

“We’ve never had an unpleasant relationship,” he said of his personal meetings with the governor. “Whenever he came in he was gracious.”

R. Bruce Dold, the newspaper’s editorial page editor and McCormick’s boss, found the entire sordid episode somewhat reassuring.

“You run an editorial page, and you always want to have an impact,” he said. “So I guess this suggests that the page had an impact. I’m glad to see the governor’s reading the newspaper.”

All of which got me thinking: While I’m not aware of any attempts by high-ranking politicians to get any of our editorial writers fired, there are times when what we report and what we have to say on our Opinion pages has an impact on community.

Perhaps the best example in recent years was our in-depth coverage that led to the dismissal of Julia Earl, the former Nashua superintendent of schools, back in 2006.

Earl was put on administrative leave – and eventually fired – after The Telegraph reported she spent at least $8,000 from school district and federal grant money to take more than a dozen out-of-state trips, several to her home state of Texas.

Several days after we broke the story, we called for her resignation in an editorial on our Opinion page.

“Our recommendation is that she resign and take her job search on the road full time and at her own expense,” we wrote at that time.

Earl chose not to heed our recommendation, but the board of education did move to terminate her contract, and she ultimately was replaced by Christopher Hottel, the city’s current superintendent of schools.

Conversely, there are times when what we have to say on our Opinion pages aren’t met with such a positive reaction.

The most recent example might be our political endorsement of President-elect Barack Obama prior to the Nov. 4 election.

As I’ve written previously, that editorial triggered a number of subscription cancellations from readers who either didn’t like our selection or didn’t feel we should endorse a candidate for president at all.

Few editorial writers like to be the cause of cancellations, of course, but it is one of those things that comes with the territory.

Like being the target of disgraced politicians in the rough-and-tumble world of Chicago politics.

Nick Pappas is editorial page editor at The Telegraph. He can be reached at 549-6505 or npppas@nashuatelegraph.com.

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