A councilman's attempt to keep his name out of the papers did just the opposite when his name landed on the paper's editorial more than 30 times and his hashtagged name, trending on social media by Tuesday evening.

It all started when Frederick County, Maryland councilman Kirby Delauter tried to get back at a hard-hitting reporter by warning her in a Facebook post not to use his name again "in an unauthorized form in the future."

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The reporter, Bethany Rodgers, responded incredulously in the same thread: "Wow... First of all, there is no requirement to get a person's authorization in order to mention them in the paper, particularly if that person is an elected official."

Then came the final warning in the post from Kirby Delauter: "Use my name again unauthorized and you'll be paying for an Attorney. Your rights stop when mine starts."

That's when The Frederick News-Post, Rodgers' paper, said enough is enough. In a mocking, tongue-in-cheek editorial titled "Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter", the paper pointed out to the public servant the reporter's rights enshrined in the First Amendment - and then some.

"Discernibly, though, Kirby Delauter's ignorance of what journalism is and does is no joke, and illustrates one disturbing aspect too prevalent in conservatives' beliefs: That the media are all-liberal stooges hell bent on pursuing some fictional leftwing agenda," said the editorial published in the paper's website.

"If he doesn't want to be held accountable, he needs to seriously consider whether he's cut out to serve the public," said Terry Headlee, managing editor of the paper.

The editorial was posted in the website ahead of its regular Sunday publication to give a chance for its 33,000 or so readers to comment. Some raised the op-ed piece as one of the best they've read in years.

The Washington Post's Eugene Volokh, who teaches at the UCLA School of Law, wittily retorted: "Uh, Council Member: In our country, newspapers are actually allowed to write about elected officials (and others) without their permission. It's an avantgarde experiment, to be sure, but we've had some success with it." 

Milking the moment, the editorial mentioned Kirby Delauter 15 times in the first three paragraphs (not including the 3 in the title) and more than 30 times in all. In the 13-paragraph article, each paragraph started with each of the letters of Kirby Delauter's name.

Memes and the hashtag #kirbydelauter had become a Twitter trend by Tuesday evening: "Today is the day the Internet put its foot on Kirby Delauter's neck," media critic Jack Shafer tweeted, according to the BBC.

In defense of a colleague, The Cincinnati Enquirer's Amber Hunt said she "might add #KirbyDelauter to every tweet today, no matter the subject, in Fourth Estate solidarity."

Tagskirby delauter, the frederick news-post, bethany rodgers, terry headlee, eugene volokh