Disclaimer headline: Mountain Xpress infiltrated by Gannett sleeper agent

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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The Asheville Disclaimer is out with one doozy of a lead story today. Check it out:

Xpress infiltrated by Gannett sleep agent

In 2008, Jason Sandford, a mild-mannered Asheville Citizen-Times employee and the blogger known as Ashvegas, abruptly left his job at the Gannett-owned daily paper and publicly declared his allegiance to Asheville’s alt-weekly, Mountain Xpress. It seemed like a coup, but recent events have revealed the astonishing breadth of Gannett’s clandestine abilities. Sleeper agent Sandford was recently activated by his Gannettt handlers and has returned to his roost with a fanny-pack full of Xpress intelligence files (which fit inside a pretty thing folder).

Here are some clues that, in hindsight, should have alerted Xpress staffers to Sandford’s mixed loyalties:

Sandford flew into a rage when a member of the Xpress A&E staff used a copy of USA Today to wipe up a personal emergency.

Once copy/pasted someone else’s story about the weather onto his blog as a cover for a leaked email from AC-T Publisher Randy Hammer instructing him to “come in from the cold.”

Stated the reason for his obsessive exercising was that John Boyle’s cubicle wasn’t big enough for the two of them.

Click over to read it all. It’s a brilliant story, though it could have been reported out just a little bit more. The story fails to mention the intense detox program I’ve had to undergo to ween myself off my weekly Xpress bong hit and monthly ration of granola. And a little digging would have revealed that my real name is Jason Bourne, so don’t eff with me. But not bad, Disclaimer. Not bad.