The Times looked into the death of DDB Chicago Creative Director Paul Tilley and found that he probably jumped from an upper floor of the Chicago Fairmont hotel to his death, and does not appear to have been brutally pushed through a window by the Scary Internet Blogs as had been feared. Though Tillet faced potentially lethal "biting" "harsh criticism" on AgencySpy.com, the Times found an anonymous friend of Tilley's who said blogs had nothing to do with his suicide:

... a colleague and friend of Mr. Tilley's, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, "There's no way you or I will know why he did this, but it's certainly not because of blogs."



"I know it bothered him," the colleague said, referring to the public criticism. "However, he was very intelligent, with lots of talents and skills, and this was not his whole life. Pointing to blogging and the media just trivializes a man whose life was not trivial."

The Times also tracked down the 29-year-old woman who writes AgencySpy. She sent an email to the Times saying she does not feel responsible for Tilley's death:

"Perhaps the definition has changed as information has become more easily accessible," she said. "This new medium has different rules and that may include the scope of who and who isn't in the public eye. Some people subscribe to these new notions and some don't.



"I'm saddened by Paul Tilley's death, but I do not feel that my blog postings contributed to the events that occurred."

Nina DiSesa of ad agency McCann Erickson Worldwide, who has a new book arguing that men listen "like a dog does," said blogs should be more respectful. Her original quote, "BAD blogger, BAD!" was apparently rejected, and anyway most male readers were too busy sniffing butts and howling at the moon to finish the article.

Her nemesis George Parker at the advertising blog AdScam, who recently called "the vast majority of the work" coming out of DiSesa's firm "shit," said traffic to his site has tripled in the wake of the suicide.

[Times]