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At one point she began working on another police story, a more controversial and questionable one, that never came to fruition. It stemmed, she says, from a tip that the town’s school-resource officers — assigned to cover public schools — were working paid details while school was in session.

"It piqued my interest, of course," she said, adding that "it’s a very legitimate issue for me if someone’s not working when they’re supposed to be." Acting on another tip, Menge says she photographed and spoke to one such officer working a detail at an intersection during school hours. Her reporting eventually led her to what she recalls was a tense meeting with Londonderry police chief Joseph Ryan, who she says told her, "there seems to be a pattern with you. Every time you come here, you’re looking for something negative."

But during that meeting, Ryan says "she convinced me that there was no ill intent" and he expresses surprise that Menge lost her job.

Captain Bill Hart, press officer for the Londonderry police, says, "I was impressed with the way Ms. Menge handled what had to be a difficult situation for her. There are times when police and journalists don’t see eye to eye on the job.... She appeared to be smart, to be both willing to ask difficult questions and appropriate questions, though sometimes they’re not the same." Like Ryan, Hart says he is surprised Menge lost her job.

NO WARNING?

Speaking with the Phoenix, Domaingue says Menge had trouble listening to her editors and with news judgment, and he says he told her "she was not adapting to our community-journalism approach."

"You don’t start with the assumption that everything is corrupt and you have to blow the lid off," he adds.

"I think many of the people who Margaret worked with in Londonderry found her reporting style to be abrasive [and] off-putting," says one Union Leader colleague. "Personally, I was surprised she used that style so early on the beat."

Asked if her bosses issued any warning signs, Menge recounts that an editor changed the lead on her first story and that at another point, her editor "did get mad at me because I dropped the ball on a story." But other than that, she says she got the sense she was doing well. "I’m old enough that I know there are sometimes other things that you just don’t know about," Menge says.

The issue of prior warning is one on which Menge and Domaingue offer very different accounts.

"She was given warnings, did not pay heed, and is no longer with us," says Domaingue. "I have no interest in trashing Margaret or her talent or her ability to get a job in the future," he adds. "You run into some people who just don’t have what it takes."

One other issue that divides the two parties is a piece submitted by Menge, which did not run in the paper, on a dispute over scheduling of two competing performances of the Nutcracker ballet in neighboring Derry that involved the threat of litigation, even though no suit had been filed. Menge says that when she told her editor (not Domaingue) there was no litigation, he still seemed interested. But Domaingue says the story was not ready for publication. "I don’t know of many newspapers that run stories about court suits that aren’t filed," he says. "There was nothing certainly that she brought to our table [that justified a story]. We asked for more documentation." While acknowledging that the Union Leader corporate side is a sponsor of one of those Nutcracker performances, Domaingue says "that has nothing to do with" the decision not to run the story.

Town officials in Londonderry — who have grown accustomed to frequent turnover among the Union Leader’s local reporters and to the need to school newcomers on how the place works — say they are scratching their heads over Menge’s sudden exit.

"I thought she was pleasant to deal with and professional to talk to and I didn’t have an issue with her," says town-council vice-chair Brian Farmer. "I didn’t see a bias or a slant in her articles." Adds town manager Dave Caron, whom Menge approached for information on her school-resource-officer story: "She was not on our beat very long. She always seemed professional to me."

"I was completely caught off guard when I found out that she was no longer going to be employed by the Union Leader," says council chair Tom Donlan. "She attended the community events [and] her stories appeared to be accurate and reflected the actual events that happened."

Menge isn’t sure what’s next, but says, "I’m going to stay in Manchester for now." When asked if she was too much of a bull in a China shop for the job in Londonderry, she minces few words.

"I came up here thinking I was going to work for a statewide newspaper, not a shopper," she says. "So I’m surprised they’re not interested in what I thought were a couple of really good stories.... I’m extremely careful, but I am aggressive and I won’t apologize for it and I don’t think I should."

Mark Jurkowitz can be reached at mjurkowitz[a]phx.com.