Fittingly, Romenesko was brought down by another journalist. Erika Fry, an assistant editor at the Columbia Journalism Review, noticed that Romenesko often pulled whole paragraphs verbatim from stories he was aggregating. Fry caught the attention of Julie Moos, director of Poynter Online, who addressed the issue in a blog post Thursday.
"Poynter.org works hard to meet the highest standards of journalism excellence, and I learned late Wednesday that we have not consistently met those standards," Moos wrote. On Friday, Moos announced on the blog that she had accepted Romenesko's resignation.
Poynter bought Romenesko's blog 12 years ago. Since that time, it has become a hub of information about journalists and the media. It is known not only for its choice of stories, but also for the discussion threads that take place there. Romenesko told The New York Times that he had expected to leave under different conditions. "This really did throw me for a loop,” he told the publication. “I think I’d probably prefer to go quietly.”
Romenesko will continue blogging on JimRomenesko.com, which will cover media as well as "other things I'm interested in," according to a message on the site.
Moos's decision to call out Romenesko has spurred some controversy in journalistic circles. Reuters columnist Felix Salmon wrote a profanity-laden blog post defending Romenesko. "Jim Romenesko is a KING of the blogosphere," Salmon wrote. "He’s the kind of person you should be looking to as an exemplar of best practices in the blogosphere. If your guidelines go against what Jim is doing, then there might well be something wrong with your guidelines. You do not throw him under the bus like this just to get out in front of a CJR piece."