Know Your Florida Media People: Lyssa Oberkreser

Lyssa Oberkreser writes the Tallahassee Democrat blog Calendar Girl. What her bio leaves out is more interesting than what is in it.

Lyssa Oberkreser is the Data Desk Editor in charge of online calendars. She is a Florida native who has worked as a children’s librarian, a news researcher, and a calendar editor for an alternative news weekly. She recently left the sizzle of South Beach and is looking forward to finding cool things to do in Tallahassee.

Oberkreser omitted that she worked for the Miami New Times when she lived in Florida. She was involved in a major cat fight that New Times staff members had on their personal blogs. Managing Editor Jean Carey wrote negative comments about staffers on her personal blog at www.italiangreyhounds.org. The posts are no longer up. I checked and the domain is still registered to Carey.

This is an example of how unprofessional Carey was on company time.

Carey responded by posting a series of derogatory remarks about the former reporter, whom she supervised. Carey expressed jealousy over the former reporter's possible romantic relationship with a former New Times staffer with whom she also had a relationship. Carey's most strident post about the woman was written during regular working hours on a weekday, which suggests that it was done in the office on a company computer.

In the post, Carey criticized the former reporter's appearance, professional skills, sexual conduct and mental stability. Carey's blog also referred by name to other current and former employees and outsiders -- including a Miami Herald reporter -- as "totally nasty, mean, classless girls." It also mentioned Mario Artecona, director of the Miami Business Forum, in a list of "constant negative anti-New Times forces."

This is where Oberkreser comes in.

In Oberkreser's blog -- which was subtitled "Sex and the Single Librarian" -- Oberkreser expressed relief that the reporter had departed and made nasty comments about her physical appearance, weight and sexual morals.

Carey and two other staffers ended up on unpaid suspension. Several staffers left the New Times. Someone explain to me why the Tallahassee Democrat thought it would be a good idea to have Oberkreser write a blog for the newspaper?