A phone call to the St. Louis Argus confirmed what I suspected: Antonio French doesn't work there anymore. I was calling because the Argus owes me money for some work I did on stlargus.com back in February. Their website and "Daily Blog" haven't been updated since then.

Antonio's name hasn't been on the paper's masthead for a while, but he's still listed as the news editor on the Argus' website. The footer on the site says "Copyright 2005 Antonio D. French." Messages sent to adfrench@stlargus.com don't bounce, but they're not answered either.

Prior to working for the Argus, Antonio was the publisher of the ill-fated Public Defender, which crashed and burned after a few issues and a lot of over-the-top boasting and circulation-number puffery, taking his investors' and subscribers' money with it without much of an apology or explanation. South Side psychologist (and jilted Pub Def subscriber) Joe Daus is right: past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

Update: Antonio paid me the money the Argus owed me out of his own pocket on May 28. It was a classy thing to do, since it wasn't really his responsibility. Somehow, the Argus continues to limp along, although you wouldn't know it by looking at their website, which still hasn't been updated since Antonio left. If you want to get in touch with Antonio, you can reach him at antonio@pubdef.net.

Posted under People by Brian Marston on Fri., Apr 29, 2005 at 4:20 PM