"No Free Speech for Reporters"
Transterrestrial Musings has notes on the Hiawatha Bray story. Bray is a columnist -- he covers technology, not politics -- for the Boston Globe. Back before the election, he posted comments on some blogs that were critical of Kerry and supportive of Bush. His employers told him to cut it out. The issues are whether a media outlet controls what its employees do under their own names on their own time.
Mediamatters wants to pillory Bray. They scoured his coverage for anything that smacks of bias. The best they can do to knock us off our chairs is reveal that Bray once wrote that "The website attacks, at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, underscore[d] the passions unleashed by the new book, 'Unfit For Command.'"
As a side note, Mediamatters, which has as its mission "correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media," seems to have replaced the admittedly useless "Editor & Publisher" as the source of media news for my liberal co-workers.
As a second side note, has anyone heard of a reporter or columnist or editor being told to shut up by his employer after expressing in a public venue personal opinions supportive of Democratic candidates, or critical of the war to overthrow Saddam? It hasn't happened where I work.
Mediamatters wants to pillory Bray. They scoured his coverage for anything that smacks of bias. The best they can do to knock us off our chairs is reveal that Bray once wrote that "The website attacks, at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, underscore[d] the passions unleashed by the new book, 'Unfit For Command.'"
As a side note, Mediamatters, which has as its mission "correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media," seems to have replaced the admittedly useless "Editor & Publisher" as the source of media news for my liberal co-workers.
As a second side note, has anyone heard of a reporter or columnist or editor being told to shut up by his employer after expressing in a public venue personal opinions supportive of Democratic candidates, or critical of the war to overthrow Saddam? It hasn't happened where I work.
