Dan Coughlin Goes Back To The Drawing Board: Hackers Are Holding His New Book Hostage

Dan Coughlin and Jim McIntyre
Photo credit: Salem Media Group

Dan Coughlin has covered sports in Cleveland for more than four decades.  He has enough material for several books, and has written two: Crazy With the Papers to Prove It: Stories About the Most Unusual, Eccentric and Outlandish People I've Known in 45 Years as a Sports Journalist, and Pass the Nuts:More Stories About The Most Unusual, Eccentric & Outlandish People I've Known in Four Decades as a Sports Journalist, published by Cleveland's Gray & Co Publishers

His third book is being held hostage.  As was reported by Plain Dealer Tipoff columnist Michael K. McIntyre, cyber thieves hacked into Dan's computer and threatened to hold its contents, including the work he has done on the new book, as electronic hostages unless he pays them $700.

He refuses to pay, and says he'll rewrite what's been lost to the criminals.  In this interview, he talks about the chapter he was writing about former Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien.  Dan also expands on some of the stories he wrote in his first two books, and notes with irony how 50 years after beginning his career by covering high school sports, he is again covering high school sports as the Friday Night Touchdown Commissioner for Fox 8 News.

Jeff Darcy of NEOMG Talks Terrorism and Cartoons

Cartoon by Jeff Darcy, NEOMG'/Used with permission

Jeff Darcy, the Editorial Cartoonist for the Northeast Ohio Media Group responds to the attack by Islamic extremists on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris.

Darcy defends the right of the newspaper to publish the offensive cartoons, but says he wouldn't produce such offensive work.  He explains the motivation behind his cartoon, pictured above.  And he admits the majority of the critical feedback he receives comes from conservative readers.

The cartoonist also writes editorials that accompany his cartoons online, at cleveland.com.  Here is his response to President Obama's absence from the unity march in Paris.