Honest to Christ, every time I think Kate McMillan can't get any dumber or dishonester, she continues to amaze:
Good Luck With That
Inside The CBC;
Any CBC employee who wants to start a personal blog which “clearly associates them with CBC/Radio-Canada” now requires their supervisor’s permission, according to a new policy document.
The unsigned policy document also states that this rule applies “not only to CBC/Radio-Canada journalists but to any corporation employee.”
Besides what you’d expect in a document like this, like not using the CBC’s resources (email, bandwidth, time, etc.) to update your blog, the policy states that such bloggers are “expected to behave in a way that is consistent with our journalistic philosophy, editorial values and corporate policies.”
Which means screwyoucbc.blogspot.com is about 15 minutes from launch.
Now, for those of you who are not shrieking, demented wingnuts, what is the critical, operative phrase above? Why, yes, it's (emphasis added), 'Any CBC employee who wants to start a personal blog which “clearly associates them with CBC/Radio-Canada” ... '
Which means that this has nothing to do with anyone who wants to start a truly personal blog, but only to those who want to publicly associate themselves with the CBC, which makes perfect sense. In fact, Kate, true to form, carefully stopped quoting just when this distinction was addressed (emphasis added):
To be clear, this policy applies only to personal blogs where the author identifies themselves as a CBC employee.
All in all, that seems eminently reasonable. It's sort of like being a Blogging Tory and understanding that you will never, never, ever speak ill of Dear Leader Stephen Harper, or point out how he is a pathological liar and control freak. Kind of like that.
Canada's Kate McMillan: When you think Canada's wingnuts can't possibly be as deranged or dishonest as their American counterparts, and you need to be set straight.
P.S. Note the update at that CBC web page discussing the "policy," where the "policy" has been downgraded to a "guideline," since policies need to be approved by the CBC Board. CBC News’ Acting Editor in Chief Esther Enkin even provides a clarification in which she states that "As with all guidelines, there is always room for discussion."
One wonders if dear Kate will bother updating her accusatory screed to point out this redefinition. Yeah, and pigs will fly out of my butt.
STUPID COMMENTERS, TOO. To absolutely no one's surprise, Kate's first commenter "GDW" also takes reality and reams it a new butthole:
In other words nobody associated with the CBC is to be allowed to utter any noncongregational opinions in any forum whatsoever.
Why, yes, GDW, that's exactly what that guideline says, isn't it? Seriously, has anyone tried suggesting that these folks stop breeding with one another? It's just a thought.
NICE CATCH, M@: Commenter m@ reminds us of a creepy parallel to this story. Remember this?
Minister stops book talk by Environment Canada scientist
Environment Minister Rona Ambrose has stopped an Environment Canada scientist from speaking publicly about his own novel.
And the rationale for this blatant censorship?
A spokesperson for Ambrose said the speech was billed as coming from an Environment Canada scientist and even though his book is a work of fiction, he would appear to be speaking in an official capacity.
Do I really need to harp on the parallels any further? Of course, that doesn't count 'cuz, well, it's different. Ya know?
11 comments:
So, would Kate think it was acceptable for an employee of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce to start a blog “clearly associating himself with the CIBC” that decried the bank’s mortgage lending practices as being exploitative or unfairly discriminatory towards certain groups of people let’s say?
This reminds me of a story where Rona Ambrose threatened a guy with being fired because he identified himself as an Environment Canada employee when promoting his novel about global warming. Everyone remember that?
Yeah, I'll just go search the blogging tories archives, there, and see... if I can... hey, wait.
Would it be okay for, say, a Conservative MP to start a blog that wasn't exactly marching in step with the CPC? 'Cause it would be interesting to see what the reaction to something like that might be, if it... uh... oh, um, never mind.
Man, you guys are sharp today. I think I'll just take the rest of the day off.
Actually, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Later.
Well, the unlettered Kate McMillan's whole approach to the dissemination of information is that there's always a hidden story that fascist liberals are covering up that only unfettered free expression and the ability to float rumour, innuendo and speculation at the expense of actual evidence will be able to uncover.
As we all know, that works so well, doesn't it?
Yes, it would be irresponsible of her not to insinuate.
I don't think anyone's suggesting that it's a good idea to publicly diss your employer.
This particular "guideline" seems overly restrictive, though: even on a blog that's not about work, it's normal to mention personal details like your 9-5 job.
Personally, I feel I owe it to my employer not to associate my blog with them in any way.
I work for an educational institution, so I don't even blog about issues related to education -- unfortunate, I know, because I actually know something about these issues, as compared to everything else I blog about, but I digress... basically, I decided when I started blogging that I didn't want to find myself in a position of having "inside" knowledge about an issue I was blogging about, nor would I want to embarrass my supervisor by saying something controversial about a workplace issue.
There will be plenty of time to blog about these issues once I am retired.
Yeah, I'm with S&M. This "guideline" seems to be overly restrictive. It goes beyond associated the blog itself with CBC. An employee couldn't even mention in their profile - or even their posts(?) - that they work for CBC. It strikes me as a heavy-handed way to crack down on the whistle-blowing that went on during the recent strike.
I shouldn't need my employer's permission to tell people that I work for them.
The Environment Canada scientist - Mark Tushingham - was not identified as a scientist from EC.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2006/04/24/ot-hotterthanhell20060424.html
"The publisher says Tushingham was described only as an Ottawa scientist."
Public servants can say whatever they want, run for politics, support legal organizations, but they must speak as private citizens when doing so. Identifying themselves as public servants linked a a particular department can make it look as though they are speaking on behalf of the department or are presenting the department's philosophy, stance.
This is a good rule. They can speak, but not for their department. CBC is right in what it is doing. Staff can have blogs, but can't identify themselves as employees of CBC, thus reducing chances that people will think that what they say is what the CBC supports.
Ambrose, on the other hand, was wrong in preventing an employee of EC from attending a promotional event for his own book because when advertizing the event, he was not identified as an employee of EC and thus not representing himself as speaking for EC.
The book came out in those months Ambrose was busily removing all links to climate change from the EC sites. Doesn't take a genius to see that was censorship.
steve and megan write:
"This particular "guideline" seems overly restrictive, though: even on a blog that's not about work, it's normal to mention personal details like your 9-5 job."
Careful. The guidelines don't say that you can't refer to your job, only that you need to ask permission first, and there's nothing to suggest that you won't get that permission as a matter of course.
Now, if it turns out that perfectly innocuous blogs are being rejected, that's a story. But let's not jump the gun here.
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