Farewell to The Ferret
Informed sources have confirmed to this journalist that The Ferret has left the Kyiv Poster, Ukraine’s leading English-language newspaper.
“He left his sissy cigarettes on the desk and didn’t say goodbye to anyone,” one source said.
The Ferret’s name has been removed from the Kyiv Poster website and he is believed to have gone for good.
No attempts were made to contact The Ferret due to extreme prejudice on the part of this journalist.
Financial dissatisfaction is thought to be the motivation for The Ferret’s sudden exit from the paper, which he had “worked at” for over a decade.
The Ferret, and other Kyiv Poster editorial staff, were hit with a 20% pay cut earlier in 2012 as part of Boss Lard’s austerity cuts.
“He cut everyone’s salary but his own,” the source said, referring to Lard, who took over as Kyiv Poster CEO in 2011.
However, former Poster staff said The Ferret, as well as other part-time editors there, had it coming.
“They were collecting fat salaries for doing a part-time job, boasting their daytime job credentials to justify this situation,” one disgruntled expat who worked at the paper said.
The Ferret’s rushed exit from the paper isn’t his first brush with controversy, the expat said.
“He left back in 2006 like a true weasel after he got a job with an internationally recognized broadsheet, then proceeded to manipulate a series of chief editors [at the Kyiv Poster] for his own benefit, engineering the firing of those who didn’t cooperate,” the disgruntled expat said, clearly still embittered from the experience.
The writing on the wall appeared in 2011, when The Ferret took the lead in a so-called strike against the paper’s owner, ostensibly over journalistic principles.
When it was over, the owner, Moe Zahar, had been publicly humiliated, while the Poster staff, led by chief editor B. Boner, remained bloated in size and salary.
Since then, both pay and staff have been drastically reduced, the source said, hinting at a possible interfaith conflict brewing beneath the surface.
“Zahar is, of course, a Muslim, while there has always been serious speculation that The Ferret is… er, a Jew, I guess. That’s not to say a Jew would oppose someone because they were a Muslim, but in The Ferret’s case, he might.”
The Ferret is known to have publicly and privately denied a Judeo-Hebraic heritage, in what critics have called typical backpedaling on his part.
Jerry Schotz, a New York-based journalist, who spent a few seasons editing the Kyiv Poster’s entertainment pages, said:
“He looked like a Jew to me – and I ought to know!”
However, Schotz added in a prescient, disclaimer-like fashion, “But that’s relevant only with respect to his denial, and not to any other issues.”
The former owner of the Kyiv Poster, Seth Sundance, a leading member of Kyiv’s expat community, is thought to have given The Ferret his first professional break.
Another former employee of the Kyiv Poster editorial staff, Josh Davies, said he saw the whole thing coming and would gladly offer his services to fill the gap left at the Poster by The Ferret.
“I offered my services, but they were rejected,” Davies said, craning his neck like an aging turkey.
Welsh Losser, a PR executive at Boss Lard Group and a Kyiv-based novelist, who also worked at the Poster, dismissed any intrigue.
“Well, you know, it’s uh, certainly a misfortune, and well, I can only say that, well, we at Boss Lard Group are fully supportive of, well, as you can truly understand, yes.”
But not everyone believes The Ferret is gone for good.
The disgruntled journalist still upset from his experience at the Poster said The Ferret could very well return in the same weasel-like fashion that he left.
“He’s done it before, twice in 2006, and then during the strike.”
Others say The Ferret has run out of holes to burrow.
“He’s tried to reinvent himself too many times, first as a sports writer specializing in hockey, then as a business writer, a consultant, etc. In short, he’s run out of lies,” another former Ferret colleague said.
The Ferret, who continues to work as a stringer in Kyiv for an internationally recognized broadsheet, has yet to release a public statement – either in writing, or from a barstool at his favorite watering hole, the Dum.
For the English-speaking audience that grew old reading his articles, The Ferret might be remembered for his penetration into the world of hard-drinking oligarchs and his unique contacts with camera-shy captains of industry, such as Tommy Fialto, Pedro Zublowski, and the Master’s Program law firm.
A statement issued by B. Boner – the Kyiv Poster chief editor widely credited with turning the Poster around from an information-based English-language weekly to a headline-based non-stop editorial – possibly best summed up the loss the paper has experienced with The Ferret’s exit:
“Uh, duh!”
Filed Earlier Than Creation (December 3, 2012)