Did you know that there’s a whispering campaign going on inside the Washington Times newsroom against George Archibald, an award-winning former journalist with the publication (with some top editors calling him a “drunk” and making fun of his love life)? Well, there is. Yesterday, editors had a chance to direct their whispers directly to his face, as he unexpectedly showed up at the Times’ headquarters to snap some pictures for his forthcoming tell-all book about the newspaper. Instead, they kicked him out of the building.

“I was with a photographer who I retained to take pix for my book cover and inside pix for Journalism Is War, coming out in January, and to talk to my friends at the Washington Times about what’s going on there since I left in September 2005 and the brain-drain since,” Archibald tells Big Head DC. “National reporter Audrey Hudson walked through the lobby while I was signing in with my photographer…. It was moments later the lobby security receptionist got a call saying not to let me into the building.”

“Upper management” had dictated that Archibald be ordered off the property, although several old friends and colleagues stopped by to offer pleasantries to him.

Insiders tell Big Head DC that morale inside the newsroom has grown increasingly poor as the paper has bled big talent — including Bill Sammon, chief White House reporter, and Rowan Scarborough, chief Pentagon reporter, to the Washington Examiner, Charles Hurt, chief Capitol Hill reporter, and Tony Blankley, editorial page editor, who announced just yesterday that he’s joining the Edelman PR firm.

Two top advertising salesmen also left the Times recently: Michael McGrath, advocacy ad manager, and his top salesman Aaron Finely. They both went to the Politico.

“Anyone who thinks these losses of talent and professionalism are not connected to the Washington Times’ reputation as the white supremacist newspaper of Francis B. Coombs, Jr. and Wesley Pruden is on drugs,” says Archibald.

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