The mysterious disappearance of Royal Calkins
Some people liked him. Right-wing conservatives hated him. I had some dealings with him and thought he was a pretty reasonable guy. Up until a couple of weeks ago, Royal Calkins was the editor of the Monterey Herald, our daily newspape r. Royal was a good communicator. As a matter of routine, he openly and honestly kept his readers informed about the nature of his job, the criticism he's encountered, and the many changes being made at the newspaper by its corporate owners, Digital First Media. At the end of December he wrote a column warning readers that the daily comics page was about to change drastically. He explained that it was a corporate budgetary decision to have the exact same comics page in all of the company's newspapers to save labor and cut costs. Combining humor with a refreshing sense of honesty he opened himself up to an inevitable barrage of complaints saying: "Yes, we know readers don't like this. In fact, we understand many of you just flat