MIAMI -- Sunday, on his weekly program "This Week In South Florida," Michael Putney talked to former Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede about the suicide of DeFede's friend, fomer city commissioner Art Teele, and DeFede's firing following the suicide.

DeFede was fired by The Miami Herald for taping a conversation with Teele, without Teele's permission. Since last Wednesday, the day Teele committed suicide, DeFede has been at the center of a journalistic maelstrom that has drawn national attention. (Full Story)

DeFede was fired just hours after the suicide when he told the newspaper's publisher that he had recorded a phone call with Teele without the late commissioner's permission. Recording without both parties being informed is against the law in Florida and it is also against The Miami Herald's policy.

Among other things, Putney asked DeFede why he felt compelled to tape their conversation.

DeFede said, "I hadn't spoken to Art in about four months, and I get this phone call from him, and we're talking, and it's not as if I immediately turned on the tape recorder that wasn't it. But as I am talking to him, and I hear the pain and distress in his voice, and he is talking about everything that is going on in his life right -- particularly the allegations of homosexuality that are facing him -- I heard something in Art's voice I had never heard before."

To hear more of what DeFede had to say to Putney, click on the video links in the sidebar above right.