Ahmed Alzaree

Something must be in the water at the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

In the past couple of weeks, longtime columnist Connie Schultz, who happens to be married to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, has come out in favor of changing copyright law to "save newspapers" (the relevant columns are here and here). Its Readers' Representative has also jumped on board.

This hostility towards blogs and bloggers is not a one-off aberration at the PD. In November 2007, columnist Dick Feagler went off, asking, among other things, "Have they ridden (implied: off the record) with a candidate in the middle of the night?" Feagler's cozy brand of non-objective "journalism" has been one of one-party, one-paper-dominated Cleveland's biggest problems for decades.

More recently, in what I take to be his second related video chat (HT The Future of Journalism via Instapundit) on the copyright topic, Readers' Rep Ted Diadiun, pictured at right, calls bloggers "a bunch of pipsqueaks out there talking about what real journalists do” (at 10:00 mark of video at link).

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer's David Briggs, quoted in entirety for fair use and discussion purposes -- the news and the preceding posts explain it all:

New Cleveland imam quits before he starts

Imam Ahmed Alzaree announced Monday, three days before he was to start work as the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, that he was resigning.

Alzaree said allegations by bloggers that he was anti-Semitic and was associated with individuals suspected of having terrorist ties so poisoned the atmosphere in Northeast Ohio that he and his wife, Marwa, decided to look elsewhere.

"Cleveland now is a nightmare for her," Alzaree said. "It will never be a good start for me and the Jewish community.

The mosque has accepted Alzaree's resignation, Zahid Siddiqi, general secretary of the mosque's executive committee, said Monday afternoon.

"We certainly don't want to impose on him and his family," Siddiqi said.

Alzaree is the former spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Omaha.

Links to previous posts are after the jump.

Update: Briggs posted a much longer piece just after 5PM, apparently for the Metro section.