A good rule of thumb is that what GateHouse Media bosses and one of their reporters are telling conflicting stories, go with the reporter’s version of events.

Right up until this happened, GateHouse was using this reporter because she was, presumably, honest. Now that they don’t want to pay a legal bill, she’s suddenly dishonest? It doesn’t pass the smell test.

At least for the community newspaper they run in my neighborhood — the Allston Brighton TAB — they have decimated what little staff they used to have and rely mostly on freelancers, who are paid an incredibly low amount per story. (When a reporter told me the pay per story, my jaw literally dropped.) And they cut out some local columns, even though they are paid a similar pittance per article.

For the more than $1 million in bonuses that GateHouse paid to these top earners this year, they probably — literally! — could have doubled (or more) the salary of all the freelancers, and bring back local columnists, at the smallest dozens and dozens of community newspapers in their portfolio.

Disclosure: I have had columns published at the Allston Brighton TAB, but I have never been paid for them. I consider it my meager donation to a worthy, dying enterprise: the local, community newspaper.

That’s her story.

But I suppose it raises a larger question. In the midst of these half-million dollar bonuses, are news outlets perhaps skimping on such fundamentals as legal counsel for their reporters?

But this line did give me a chuckle:

she was found in contempt for failing to appear at an inquisition

Don’t care if that’s what Kansas calls a Grand Jury. Not sure I’d show up either!

GateHouse remains the villain in this drama.