It has come to our attention that this happened while we were gone. Long story short, a PR company was being annoying and the reporter got sick of it and ranted in an e-mail to his editor. The only problem was that he sent it back to the PR company by mistake, which did what PR companies do and spun it to try to make it look godawful. They caught flack on their own page although it’s obvious they were hoping everyone would side with them and set the newspaper alight.
Someone did side with them: the reporter’s higher ups. He was dismissed.
From what we’ve been told, this guy was an accomplished writer and probably never thought griping to his boss would lead to him being fired. Who hasn’t nearly sent a nasty e-mail about someone to that person. Our rationale is that it is sweeter to talk about someone behind their back when you know they can hear you but, in this industry, one has to ensure that your gentle readers don’t know you realize and loathe the fact that they’re drooling idiots.
As editors ourselves (we’re getting really good at using this Editorial We), especially considering running a site where we poke fun at the asinine things that arrive at newspapers across the country, we see this as a quandary. If we had a nickel for every time we called a PR flack something or whatever he or she was representing some off-color something out of sheer exasperation, we’d be rich. The only problem is how do you save face if he or she finds out they’ve annoyed you to the point of being called a blind fucker?
Yes, it seems spineless to let him go because of this one e-mail but to let him stay and defend why would be to walk through a minefield. So you condone making fun of disabilities? We thought journalists were objective. How do I know that he’ll write a fair article?
We probably would have told the writer to issue a public apology and suspend him a week and we’d also write a piece about how, although this is embarrassing, he is a damn fine writer and we’d be fools to just let him go and we’re implementing training. Sure, you’ll get the people outraged that we didn’t serve his head on a platter and vow to never read it again. By firing him, you get the people who will just say he was only fired because he got caught and will vow never to read the paper again.
What would we do if we’re were not the source of this Web log and an employee forgot to mosaic out someone’s name? We’d ask the reporter to take this down and he or she is gone. That’s mostly because the incident would probably be the first time we’d hear of this site. If he or she asked, we wouldn’t give permission to start this.
But
We understand the need to vent, the need to share what comes across our desk that makes our eyes bleed. We’re going to be here until we make a huge mistake, you chicken out and stop submitting things or it becomes obvious that we’re no longer funny.
Just be smart about talking shit about people because you never know when you have to explain your words.
All right. Enough of this. More stupid things from the masses tomorrow.
