Ubiquitous Marketing

I’ve somewhat followed this sports blogger getting Dooced by the Washington Post. Apparently he got fired for this post. It does raise interesting questions of what journalists are allowed to do (and write) in their personal lives. I believe that no journalist should be fired just because he or she blogs on the side (obvious qualifiers about whether or not it affects the job, etc.) or has a drunken picture appear on the I’nets. But I kind of think the context of what they write on their personal blogs is fair game for an employer. Obviously, the Washington Post isn’t saying why it fired him (it claims he resigned), but editors there are just not going to get satire and racial humor (still don’t know what the ‘knowing point’ is of this recurring piece). If he was in fact just fired because he was drunk in a picture (with a parrot!), then that, is in, fact lame.

He probably would have gotten fired day one if he announced he would be doing this side project, but no one should be surprised if the WaPo - upon his revelatory post - looked through the archives and found grounds for his firing. To work in the media (save for a few choice spots) is to shed your opinions and much of your personality when writing. Maybe this will change, but it hasn’t yet.

The outrage from readers - if not mock -is kind of weird. It does suck when someone whose work you admire gets fired, but they were certainly not raptly reading his WaPo metro coverage.