Inmate Todd E. Fogle got the ball rolling.

“I would like to know why The Buffalo News was stopped being delivered,” he said in a grievance he filed at the Erie County Correctional Facility. “I would like our newspaper back.”

“Grievance denied,” said the response from a jail official. “There is no statutory requirement to provide any newspaper at all.”

“That is true,” said John M. Caher, a spokesman for the State Commission of Correction, which received a copy of the grievance.

The copies of The News that for years have gone to inmates at the correctional facility in Alden and the Holding Center in downtown Buffalo remain canceled, unless Sheriff Timothy B. Howard manages a change of heart.

Howard, displeased with News articles and editorials about problems at the Holding Center and Correctional Facility, dropped The News from the assorted publications that are distributed to inmates.

Howard’s administrative chief, Brian D. Doyle, gave the order two days after Howard narrowly won re-election to another four-year term Nov. 3.

“The Buffalo News subscription for the Holding Center and Correctional Facility have been canceled effective Monday 11/09/09,” Doyle wrote in an e-mail to jail officials Nov. 5.

The News, Doyle explained, would be supplanted by USA Today.

USA Today lacks the same level of local coverage and does not publish on weekends. It also does not carry editorials critical of Howard or articles about the state and federal lawsuits seeking to improve conditions at his Holding Center and Correctional Facility.

Fogle, serving time on a drunken driving conviction, was not alone in his complaint. Thirty-six inmates at the correctional facility signed a petition to request copies of The News. But Fogle’s grievance, obtained by The News under the Freedom of Information Law, expressed the collective disappointment.

“I do have the right to know what is going on in the Buffalo area,” he said. “Seven days a week, reading local news, sports, obituaries, job listings, homes, apartments for rent, etc . . .

“USA Today has nothing for me . . . ”

“If you like the USA Today you read it, and I’ll read The Buffalo News,” he told officials at the penitentiary. “Please don’t fix things that are not broke.”

But if Fogle really wants to read the newspaper, he will have to buy a subscription.

While the sheriff does not have to provide free copies of the newspaper, he can’t block an inmate from receiving his own paid subscription, said Caher, the spokesman for the state commission.

Similarly, jail officials cannot block copies that are donated to specific inmates, Caher said.

So will Howard, Doyle and company let free copies of The News through their doors?

The newspaper called to inquire. Its calls were not returned.