The dismissal angered many at the paper, including Bob Mimzesheimer, a young journalist at the paper who is now a book critic for USA Today, the national newspaper that is the flagship of the Gannett chain.

"This was a reporter and editor that any young reporter could learn a great deal from," Mimzesheimer says. "They wasted the end of his career, maybe because he wasn't corporate enough."

Another late career casualty was Rex Schaeffer, the librarian at the newspapers' Rochester headquarters, who says he was demoted to assistant librarian by Giles after he allowed researchers from Rochester-based Eastman Kodak, a subject of occasionally critical coverage in the newspapers, to visit the library.

"I had been the librarian there for 30 some years," Schaeffer says. "[After the incident] my assistant became the librarian and I became the assistant."

" It was not done with any discussion with me," Schaeffer says. "Instead of taking the position that 'This was not a good thing, let's talk about it,' Giles summarily demoted me."

Many journalists from Giles's Rochester years also remember the case of John Dougherty, now deceased, who was managing editor of the Times-Union for many years before Giles transferred him to the same post at the Democrat and Chronicle.

A number of journalists from the two papers say that Dougherty was devastated by the reassignment, in which he was forced to take over the paper he had competed against for his entire career.