You thought it was just Chicago Tribune editors who were under constant threat of being fired if they gave less than stellar appraisals for the powers that be? Consider the plight then of Cleveland's Plain Dealer music critic, who dared to print negative reviews on his city's orchestra, and then found himself out of a job.

Now the critic, Donald Rosenberg, is suing the orchestra and the Plain Dealer for "a campaign of vilification" to get him removed from the orchestra beat.

Seems like a reasonable thing to do: if a writer keeps picking the same target and making the same complaints, it's fully in that target's rights to write a letter to the paper and urge his removal.

On the other hand…

The country is suffering from a dearth of creative critics as is, as newspapers and magazines often find these writers the easiest to cut once layoffs hit. And Rosenberg didn't even find himself out of a job, per say, as he is still writing dance and theater reviews for The Dealer.

Much like the case of the LA Times staff suing Sam Zell, you wonder if biting the hand that feeds you during a period of economic duress and job uncertainty is really the wisest idea. Then again, as one of the orchestra lawyers said about the Rosenberg lawsuit “So what?” It is Cleveland we're talking about, after all.