That's great news! DeFede has always been an anti-Cuban hypocrite and now he is also a law breaker since he committed a felony by recording Teele's conversation without his approval.
Good riddance!

Tocayo, I guess he learned quite a bit visiting castro and Cuba, don't you think?

ABOUT TIME !!
THE SCUMBAG!...I HOPE HE IS UNEMPLOYED FOR A GOOD WHILE. I SAY GIVE HIM A ONE WAY TICKET TO "CASTRO'S PARADISE".

DeFede unethical! Really...? and now is when they noticed this. OOOoohhh happy day! Good riddance!

I wonder if Teele's decision to commit suicide was made because of the tape...?
If so, DeFebe has a lot of splainin to do, and quite a few new roommates to please.

Looks like Jim DeFed-ed himself...friggin' aura tiñosa...no, take it back, that's insulting to vultures.

All too typical the-rules-don't-apply-to-me attitude I saw in plenty of newrooms.

Maybe it is good for de Fede to be unemployed for a while. He needs to lose about 350 pounds to look like a normal person, otherwise he may end up in Val's Caja China one of these days :)

DeFede has always had a soft spot for Teele, despite Teele's checkered past.

Teele probably just considered DeFede as a friend and wanted to talk to him. I seriously doubt there was any kind of cover up going on (Teele already had enough local indictments hovering over him as it was, with additional state of Florida charges pending).

very curious to see defedes last column.. it is probably "property" of the herald, since he wrote it while he was (technically) still employed there, but todays world being what it is with the internet it may pop up somewhere.. defede may just cross biscayne blvd back to the new times or the drive north to the sentinal..

ditto on what robert said re: teele/defede relationship.. defede was probabaly the only friend teele had in the media, and teele may have even gone to him as a friend, and not a "politicial-journalist" chat.. as far as covering local politics, there wasnt a bigger muckraker (and i say big in every sense of the word) than defede, so defede had deep contacts and relationships in the local politics scene..

De Fede was just interviewed on Channel 6 NBC and he said that when he first told his bosses at the Herald what he had done, they said that everything was going to be OK and that they 'could move up from there' but that he was called two hours later and was told that he was fired.
Fiedler, the executive editor, was out of town yesterday, maybe when they got in touch with him he gave the order to fire him.

I find it rather puzzling that Jim DeFede would be "friends" with the late Art Teele, in view of the latter's history, as thoroughly detailed in the Miami New Times' current issue, which details some of the various police investigations of the former public official.
DeFede probably considered him a good "source," one that could help him advance his career at the Herald, but little more.
And many, many questions remain unanswered:
--what did Teele really want from DeFede, since he ostensibly went to the Miami Herald building to contact the columnist?
--was there, in fact, a package brought to DeFede by Teele?
--if so, what is in that package?
--and who does that package belong to, Teele's heirs, DeFede or the Herald... or the police?
--what happens to the case(s) against Teele now?
--will DeFede go back to work the Miami New Times... or maybe he will be "snapped" by another mainstream media outlet, like The Washington Post (where he has a lot of contacts because *many* former Miami Herald staffers work there) or The New York Times?
Stay tuned, folks. As they say in the journalism business... more to come...
Julio

Oh, another unanswered question I forgot...
--will this slob DeFEde *ever* take some pride on his personal appearance and proceed to lose some (actually, A WHOLE LOT OF) weight? (he reminds me, argh!!! of "slob-supreme" Michael Moore).
Julio

Otro par de toquetes...

Anybody ever SEEN DeFede and Moore in the same room? Separated at birth, maybe?

Hmmmmm,
Good point!
Julio (the First? --if so, just who are you, Julio II?)

I just want to console Val and George on the loss of their pal, Jim DeFeedme.

Steve, your compassion is a balm for our sad and weary souls.

Dos pajaros de un tiro.

Don't worry Mr. Defede, your enemies are building your statue in the Hall of Fame...The more offensive and unethical, the better...

Diana.

Sorry to burst your bubble folks, but there's no such thing as bad press. This is the best thing that ever happened to DeFede's career. Now more people than ever are reading his columns and I'd put money on his having a very bright future. The Herald overreacted in an attempt to draw attention away from their role in Teele's suicide. They made DeFede the scapegoat and fortunately for Jim, Americans love to root for the underdog.

Defede was fired to cover all up the alleged illegal wiretaps on Teele. The Herald is just covering thier arse for when the truth comes out. This was not the first and only time Defede taped illegally. Alledgedly, He had taps placed on teeles Cell and car. It will all come out in the wash now. By the way, when is the Defede indictment coming out. Who was the port director when all this bribery was going on?

Interesting: When Defede would attack Cubans in his column, nobody complained. When he used his column to divide Cubans, nobody complained. Only when he went after the late Art Teele, George Batchelor and Leonard Miller...the Herald responds. They should have fired him a long time ago!!!

I honestly hate to see him go. Like it or not he provided balance to an otherwise unbalanced city. While I failed to agree with his points of view regularly, I do admit that his points of view are very well represented in the community and most of the time they are not expressed for fear of typical and absolute reprisals. The had the CoXones to print things about the Cuban exiles, city leaders and police departments that would normally not be mentioned by the "established" choir boys of the tamed media outlets. While he may be a SOB from our point of view, we must learn to accept that balance is key to a healthy society. Jim Defede brought balance to Miami. Only time will tell if his void will be filled by any other discenting voice.. Unlikely considering the Herald management.