Blogging May Be Hazardous to My Career
(Tom Regan is away this week. NPR's New York correspondent, Robert Smith, is filling in.)
This is my first post, and if I'm not careful it might be my last. It makes a public radio blogger a little nervous to hear that the CBC (the Canadian version of NPR) is cracking down on its employees' personal blogs. Along with the standard boilerplate about not blogging on company time and computers, the CBC's new editorial guidelines go further.
The blog cannot advocate for a group or a cause, or express partisan political opinion. It should also avoid controversial subjects or contain material that could bring CBC/Radio-Canada into disrepute.
This applies not just to journalists, but to all employees at the network who identify the CBC in their blogs. Receptionists. Janitors. Librarians. Over on the official Inside the CBC blog, employees and others are arguing over whether the network has gone too far. Gillian writes, "God forbid that people find out that CBC employees have opinions! What, you mean they're real people?"
The real sin of the CBC is not that it wants to appear impartial. That's normal. But the network doesn't seem to understand how touchy the blogosphere gets when Daddy tells it what to do. Here's a much more constructive approach. A year ago, some CBC bloggers made their own rules, such as:
Use common sense and don't do anything stupid. Blog to make the CBC better, not to kill it.
See, it's basically the same rule the CBC made, but much more chill. As for NPR, our ethics guide doesn't specifically mention blogs. Still, I hope my bosses don't discover my personal blog, where I share my deepest and most heartfelt secrets.
(Update: Looks like I should have been a little more careful with the link to my "personal blog." Although it was a just a joke, it turns out that blogs are indeed mentioned in the updated NPR ethics guide. Here's the language:
"NPR journalists must get written permission for all outside freelance and journalistic work, including written articles and self-publishing in blogs or other electronic media, whether or not compensated. Requests should be submitted in writing to the employee's immediate supervisor. Approval will not be unreasonably denied if the proposed work will not discredit NPR, conflict with NPR's interests, create a conflict of interest for the employee or interfere with the employee's ability to perform NPR duties."
So, technically, my link was blogging without permission. Now, you will note that NPR's rules only apply to journalists with the organization and not all employees. In that way, we are different than the CBC.)
- Robert Smith
10:39 AM ET | 08- 6-2007 | permalink
