An Indianapolis Star writer is the latest journalist to be fired for blogging over a cliff: In his case, using racially offensive language to describe the city council president. (Both the writer and the pol are black.)
At first blush, the firing appears to me to be an overreaction on the part of the paper’s management, but I’m not responsible for the Indianapolis Star and I don’t have politicians and community members banging on my desk demanding action.
What did he write? You’ll have to go to the comments section of the news story for get the verbatim, but I can tell you it wasn’t the “N” word. And like many leaving comments there, I had not previously heard the term.
While unclear from the coverage, I’m going to guess that the writer, RiShawn Biddle, was posting without benefit of an editor (no editor seems to have been fired).
What I do know for certain is that this type of thing — getting fired for what you write — is an occupational hazard that does — and should — give me pause every time I start typing. I’ve managed to put in 30 years of expressing opinions for pay without stepping into it so deep that my employment was threatened, so I blog with a fair degree of confidence that I will recognize and respect the lines (such as they are).
Yet a steady stream of others fall into a hole from which they can only escape unemployed. It’s sad.
Welcome regulars and passersby. Here are a few more recent Buzzblog items. And, if you’d like to receive Buzzblog via e-mail newsletter, here’s where to sign up.
One picture is worth 335,000 charred acres – latest from NASA.
A review of “Fake Steve’s” real book: It’s vintage faux Jobs.
Researchers turn to xkcd for direction.
This year’s “25 Geekiest 25th Anniversaries.”
Verizon FiOS out for 5th time in 7 months, but …
Here’s what the PC store agreed to pay for losing the customer’s hard drive.
Federal “fix” knocks ca.gov for a loop
