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MCA Director Says Tribune was out to Get Duggan Fired!
by Angela Ortiz (Rumbo 06/01/01)

The Executive Director of The Massachusetts Citizens Alliance (MCA) told the audience of WCCM’s Paying Attention radio show last week that Eagle Tribune reporter Nancy Rodriquez called his office with the specific intent to get Rumbo columnist Tom Duggan fired from his new lobbying job.

Duggan was hired in early March as the Director of Grassroots and Political Affairs for MCA, a Waltham based public policy organization, which is lobbying for the Protection of Marriage Bill in the legislature. "Nancy Rodriques called my office and asked me if I knew of Tom Duggan’s ‘past.’ I told her that Tom was very honest with me prior to being hired here. He told me about the accusations against him and the details surrounding his resignation from the Lawrence School Board three years ago," Rudnick recounted on the air.

Tom Duggan resigned from the Lawrence School Committee in 1998 after The Eagle Tribune saturated the front page of their paper with over a dozen articles about a joke that was played on him by his ex-girlfriend. At the time of the incident the ex-girlfriend said publicly (Eagle Tribune 3/13/98) that Duggan had nothing to do with the joke, which was an Internet ad that made it look as though the couple was into swinging.

Duggan’s new boss, Bryan Rudnick said that the Tribune reporter continually asked if everyone at MCA was aware of his so-called past and what they thought of Duggan working for MCA considering the company’s public stand in favor of conservative family values.

"I told her we have a board of advisors and that they have never met Tom. I do all the hiring and firing and I am more than satisfied with Duggan’s performance thus far. I have never doubted his character. But she went ahead and called everyone on the advisory board as though they were a board of directors and began to tell these people the Tribune’s version of why Duggan resigned from the School Committee three years ago. There is no question in my mind they were trying to raise enough controversy here at MCA to get him fired."

The Tribune headline last week (Eagle Tribune 05/13/01) read "Leader Questions Duggan Hiring" with quotes from Boston City Councilor Jim Kelley who said "No one affiliated with MCA condones that kind of behavior." Rudnick said Kelley’s words were twisted to embarrass Duggan and make him a public liability to the organization. "Coming from a journalism background and as a former journalist myself I decided to call the city editor at the Tribune (John Macone) to tell him I wanted a retraction and I didn’t appreciate their calling my office to try and get Mr. Duggan fired."

Rudnick said in his conversation with Macone, the Tribune editor told him Duggan has a "shady past" and that there "were parts of the story so explicit that even the Tribune couldn’t print it. "So I asked Mr. Macone exactly what he knew of Tom Duggan besides the trash they have printed about him. Obviously if there is something about Tom I should know about he should give me the courtesy of cluing me in for the betterment of my organization. Tom has a very public and integral role in this organization."

But Macone wouldn’t relay any information about Duggan other than to say "you don’t really know Tom Duggan, he’s involved in a lot of things. Maybe you should ask him to tell you about them."

"Given the way they have come after Tom just on this story alone," Rudnick opined "there is no doubt in my mind if they knew of anything else damaging about Tom Duggan it would have already been on page one. They really should stop printing editorials disguised as news stories."

Rudnick appeared on Duggan’s radio talk show on WCCM to publicly defend his newly hired Grassroots and Political Affairs Director saying "The problem with this story is that the Eagle Tribune obviously has it out for Tom. I find it highly unprofessional. For them to blatantly interfere with his privately held job shows the viciousness they are willing to employ when creating a story. Reporters are supposed to find a story and report on what happens. That didn’t happen here. They called our board of advisors looking for anyone who might possibly make a negative comment about Tom. We at MCA have been speaking with our attorneys about possible legal action against the Tribune. They have no right to come after this guy the way they have. Whether they like him or not, their own story of three years ago clearly proved that someone else posted that internet ad and the person responsible for it publicly admitted it. Why they are still trying to hag this around his neck after all these years is beyond me, but my office is not going to take it laying down."

Duggan said very little about the controversy on his Saturday afternoon radio program until former School Committeewoman and longtime bitter rival Rita Falco called in on the air. "Tommy, what the Tribune is doing to you just isn’t right," Falco said in his defense. Falco defeated Duggan in 1987 for the School Committee and the two have been at odds since that time. "If you don’t bow down at the alter of the Tribune they are going to try and ruin your life. The problem is, Tommy, you don’t play ball with them and they don’t like that. You have never attacked anyone personally, it’s always been about politics and there is no reason for hem to treat you this way."

Bryan Rudnick said that advisory board member Jim Kelley was "caught off guard" when harassed by the Tribune for comments about Duggan. "These two men have never met. Councilor Kelley had no idea what the real story was about Tom and I suspect that Nancy Rodriques didn’t exactly give him an accurate account either."

On his own behalf Duggan would only say that he though the story was irrelevant after three years but spoke much more forcefully when the discussion turned to the way the Tribune violated the privacy of his friends and family.

"Look the only thing I asked of the Tribune when this story broke was this;" Duggan told his audience. "You print whatever you want about me. If you want to come after me fine, come after me. I’m a big boy and I have been through worse. If you want to dig into my past fine, dig into my past. If you want to talk to the women I date, my family or my friends…about ME, that’s fine too. But the Tribune was digging into the private lives of everyone in my life and calling me daily to ask if I was ready to resign yet. They kept telling me if I didn’t resign the private details of everyone around me would be made public including accusations that were unfounded. That just isn’t fair. These people are not elected officials and I was not about to let the Tribune destroy everyone around me just because the Tribune has a political agenda to get me off the School Committee. That, on top of the fact that I was actually trying to accomplish something on the School Board and couldn’t get anything done because all people could talk about was this ridiculous internet story so I walked away."

Mr. Rudnick said he is very happy with the work Duggan is doing for his organization. "Tom Duggan is a very important part of the success we’ve had in the last few months. He is responsible for gathering more than 20,000 signatures for House Bill 3375, the Protection of Marriage Bill. We presented those signatures to Speaker of the House Tom Finneran’s office at the State House two weeks ago after holding a press conference. If it weren’t for Tom this couldn’t have happened. We owe a lot of our success to Tom’s political and media experience. He has a bright future at Massachusetts Citizens Alliance and we are happy to have him on board despite the image the Tribune tries to portray of him."

Abigale Agnew contributed to this article.