Cruz achieved the epithet"bobble-head" earlier this year when he devoted a front-page article to covering the making and marketing of a bobble-head doll in the shape of long-dead Alabama football coach Bear Bryant.

Cruz's reporting about campus affairs at the University of Alabama generally followed the same style and form, maintaining a rigorous avoidance of investigation or analysis.

The Alabama Scholars Association, an affiliate of the National Association of Scholars, created a special section on its website devoted to the"bobble-head" journalism of Gilbert Cruz. (See www.alabamascholars.org) We are pleased that after only a couple of months of relentless lampooning, Mr. Cruz decided it would be in his best interests to leave.

We understand he will now be employed in the entertainment industry, in a job much better suited to his talents as a soft-ball writer of fluff and flummery.

Bottom line: If you are dissatisfied with the reporting in your local newspaper, start a website and lampoon the heck of it.