KEY POINTS:
A blogger been sacked from his day job as a journalist, after writing about a rival media company.
Urbis magazine market editor Isaac Hindin-Miller, 24, said he had sought advice from an employment lawyer after losing his job as a market editor for the AGM-owned Urbis magazine.
Hindin-Miller
has a personal blog site, isaaclikes.com, and on December 9 he wrote about rival ACP's plans to shut some of its websites including Runway Reporter, with the loss of about eight jobs.
ACP labelled the speculation as defamatory and incorrect, but has since confirmed Runway Reporter and several other sites would close, with the loss of five jobs.
ACP said it had nothing to do with Hindin-Miller's dismissal.
Hindin-Miller was dismissed on December 11 and marched out of the door by Urbis publisher Parul Sheopuri.
Sheopuri did not return repeated calls from the Herald on Sunday for comment, but she had been reported as saying that Hindin-Miller's contractual arrangement with the company came to an end because he "posted comments about a competitor of AGM, during business hours". It had also been reported that she had previously worked at ACP media as a magazine manager.
Hindin-Miller said he could not yet comment on his legal advice, but said he was upset about having lost his job.
"I was really, really upset that I was fired. It was completely unexpected and it was not a nice experience... it's an incredibly unfair thing that has happened," he said.
It is understood he was dismissed about two hours before he was due to have a redundancy consultation.
ACP chief executive Paul Dykzeul said he wanted it known that he had nothing to do with Hindin-Miller's sacking: "I'm prepared to say that in court, by the way."
Dykzeul said on Friday the decision had since been made to close Runway Reporter and Your Home and Garden websites; the Metro website had gone months ago. The Taste and Cleo websites had been transferred to the MSN platform. There had been about five redundancies.
He would not comment on the fact that much of what Hindin-Miller blogged turned out to be correct.
Dykzeul said he had no idea who Hindin-Miller was, or that he would be sacked over the blog.
He learned of Hindin-Miller's sacking via a letter on December 11 from Sheopuri.
Hindin- Miller's lawyer, Lorne Campbell, said legal action was "always a possibility", but he hoped this would not be necessary. "We always try to reach agreements to resolve problems first," he said.
Hindin-Miller had worked at Urbis since February this year.
