Mate, have you considered issues such as the legal aspects of putting something up like a petition?
I essentially agree and support your idea of a petition, but the best place for it would be on a fan-focused messageboard such as this one or the WORL forums.
Despite never meeting him face to face, I've found MattO to be a reasonable sort of bloke, and one with principles. I remember sending in an article to him once, but he would never put it up on the website. After three more attempts, I eventually chucked it up on the WORL forums and had a mini-blast at MattO for being selective when it came to what goes up on the site. As it turned out, the only reason why it didn't go up was because it was taken word-for-word from another newspaper and wasn't an original article. I learnt a valuable lesson from that episode.
That comment about ''power getting to his head'' seems a tad unfair, if Jim Hall or anyone else finds something libelous in that website, it's MattO's arse that will be sued. I believe it has happened before, when a player/official/club objected to an article which was subsequently pulled.
For WORL to stay as the best site in league today, it has to be impartial and not surrender itself to the kingdom of the slogan. I've known of many sites who would latch onto one club/player/issue and never let go, we've seen it recently with the Kearns article, which in hindsight is just sensationalist journalism.
That's about it mate. Good luck with the petition, we really need to sort those bastards out!
Cheers
Bomber