Don't you just love living in a free country? A free country is one where legislators don't abuse their power by pressuring newspapers into firing bloggers because they don't like their views. Don't you just love living in one? Oh, wait...
A couple months back, the Cleveland Plain Dealer hired 4 political bloggers - 2 conservative and 2 liberal - for a new daily blog feature. Well, blog blog blog blogga blog! This caught the eye of Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) when it was discovered that one of the bloggers dared to be a supporter of LaTourette's election opponent last year and wrote about LaToilet getting campaign money from the Ratner family, which runs an influential Cleveland real estate empire. Suspiciously, this support from the Ratners was followed by them receiving a lucrative contract for a major Washington, D.C., development.
This week, the blogger was suddenly fired because of intervention by LaTourette. The congressman had complained to the Plain Dealer's editorial page editor about the blog. The Plain Dealer tried forcing the blogger never to write about LaTourette, even though LaToilet is an important Cleveland-area politician. When Plain Dealer big shots were told that this was an impossible demand for a Cleveland political blog to meet, the firing occurred.
Were any similar demands made of the paper's 2 conservative bloggers to not discuss politicians they deemed too liberal? We think you can guess the answer to that. (Here's a hint: It's no.) It was understood that all 4 of the bloggers were supposed to be partisan and opinionated, so the paper can't very well claim the fired blogger lost his post for being too biased.
It turns out that at least 2 of the other bloggers have contributed to political candidates. Just not ones who were running against Steve LaTourette - so that's why they weren't fired.
When a public official can retaliate against a writer for a newspaper's website in this manner, it's no wonder America has fallen so low on press freedom rankings.
(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/30/18836/942)
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Congressman gets blogger fired for having "wrong" views
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If "YellowDogSammy" contributed to the campaign related to what he writes about for the newspaper or its Web site, he should expect to be fired. Same thing would and should happen if an editorial page writer did it. That's one of the first things they teach you in journalism school. If the other bloggers did it too, they should also be fired.
ReplyDeleteAgain I caution you about using blogs as sources. Why not talk to YellowDogSammy and the Plain Dailer yourself?
The Plain Dealer can defend itself in its own pages, ScheffBoyarDee.
ReplyDeleteIf you read YellowDogSammy's blog, YDS did plenty to get the PD's side, and you'll see the PD contradicted itself.
If you think a blogger for a newspaper should be fired for contributing to the Dems, then shouldn't the execs who run the papers also be fired from contributing to the GOP? Think about that for a minute ScheffBoyarDee.
I do hope a very big lawsuit against the PD results from this, as this clearly a case of political discrimination.
Hey...PD = Plain Dealer = Political Discrimination....get it?