Daniel Thompson is a far-left blogger who used to work for the Kenosha News. He quit in protest after the paper published a headline that didn’t fit his narrative. When he is not writing blog posts about the local music scene, he is donning flashy clothes like a fedora and man capris.
After his dramatic departure from the Kenosha News, he was written about in the New York Times. Many Kenosha people were featured in the paper. He then joined forces with another former Kenosha News employee at the Racine County Eye. After only a few months, the two parted ways and he then started his own publication called the Uptown Observer.
Today, he posted a few frustrating messages on Facebook. Around 11:00 a.m., he published the below post. He was frustrated because many of his friends were sending him our article that we wrote about the embattled Sheriff of Kenosha County, David Beth. (It’s been seen many thousands of times, the last we checked.)
Shortly after, as he often does, he posted a link to his ca$h app and asked for people to give him their money – kind of like a panhandler. Thompson alluded to the fact that he is not able to support himself without a real job. He said that he has “gotten used to living like this.”
He also went on to insult this publication, which he has the right to do. We thought we would turn a potential grudge match into a light-hearted fun thing. We offered Thompson a friendly wager – to have a neutral, third party review the visitor stats and revenue for both websites. The losing website would donate $100 to the winning website’s favorite charity (excluding anything related to abortion, of course).
Thompson declined our offer by seemingly admitting we are more successful but saying that hits on our websites and revenue don’t matter. He says that this publication has no integrity. Obviously we disagree with Thompson. While we are making a few bucks on ad revenue, that’s not why this publication exists. It exists because there is a void of investigative journalism in Kenosha County. Our competitors base decisions on which stories to cover on politics. We investigate and tell you the things that you deserve to know.
Via email, Thompson then threatened to raise money to hire a “good enough lawyer” to sue us and put us out of business. Kid, we call out Judges, prosecutors, DA’s, cops and politicians. Sorry if we don’t seem intimidated by you.
Thompson then threatened to release emails he said his former colleague and current reporter at the Kenosha News, Deneen Smith has. He said that Deneen has been sharing with him emails that seemingly have to do with her role as the Kenosha County Circuit Court media coordinator. That’s right – Deneen Smith of the Kenosha News gets to help decide which media outlets have access to the courts with photography. This is similar to this hypothetical: McDonald’s runs the health department and shut down all the Burger Kings. We don’t know which emails she is talking about but he should share them if he feels there’s something wrong with what she did.
While it was never our intention to start some kind of rivalry, we had to put some of Thompson’s comments on the record so folks understand what is going on here in Kenosha. The local paper isn’t going to last much longer, and people like us will take over. It could happen sooner than we think.
5 Responses
Glad a FB friend shared this reporting on Beth!! Finally reading something on what’s been going on around Kenosha AND the county!! Forget Kenosha County Scanner! That page is full of sh*t! And now they want ya to pay for their right wing racist BS when all I ever wanted to know was why there were tons of sirens or Flight for Life flying over. Thanks for the good reporting!!
He should give you something, though….after all, I had never heard of his site before this article.
However, after looking at his site, Daniel Thompson doesn’t get many contributions because his site sucks. A bunch of boring stories…..no actual scoops or news.
Also….if he can’t even get $100 raised for his site…..it’s going to be pretty hard to find a “good lawyer” fore even less than that.
for* not fore….damn autocorrect.
I will say….this site should enable editing of posts.
Only a dumb@$$ fool would quit a job then complain how he’s spent his last buck and now just scraping by. I’m thinking of myself and others I know who spent years in jobs they disliked but stuck with that job to provide for their families and pay bills. After reading about Daniel Thompson, why would anybody be interested about reading anything he puts out?
Starve a little while longer Daniel then go get a real job, acquire a good work ethic, and not be hungry. You are not going to be the next Mark Twain!
The KCE is one of the few sites I actually get enthused about visiting, hoping for the next posting. Thanks for all you do. The ad revenue is entirely earned for the time being put into this.
What further pleases me are the veils being removed from these small town left-wing nobodies one by one who think they are press or activists just because they hide behind some quasi-official website or start giving themselves a title. He probably can’t afford the $100. The least he can do is thank you for the traffic you’re driving to his site.