 Following a column he wrote in the August 3, 2007 issue of the Metro, Kalan was fired for writing a self-deprecating joke about the increasing obsolescence of the newspaper industry.This was followed by a brief article in New York Magazine on August 20, 2007 about the incident, which was heavily publicized on internet blogs including Media Bistro, Huffington Post, and Gawker.Many blog postings about the incident imply that the Metro violated basic principles of journalism and freedom of expression in firing Kalan.