Young Journalist Drinks And Swears!
If you're his editor, do you 1. Fire his ass? or 2. Yawn and go about your business?
Unfortunately, newspapers these days have more in common with nursery schools than any other business (you wouldn't believe the censorship you never hear about that goes on in the comics pages!).
In other words, WaPo reporter Michael Tunison is now out of a job -- thanks to this devastatingly dirty blog item...in which, no, there's no goat-fucking or anything along those lines...just the word "fucking," the revelation that he works for The Washington Post, and the suggestion that he's drunk off his ass in the photo.
Wooooo!
Okay, so maybe the WaPo doesn't want its reporters revealing such things, or using what's prissily known as "the 'F' word,'" but personally, I don't especially want to read the work of reporters who don't drink or swear...do you?
I'm not saying drinking and swearing is a must, no. It's just that I think a reporter should live a little to be good at his or her job.
More on the story here.
P.S. If what the guy is saying is true, I love that he can make more just blogging than he can from his former job at The Washington Post.
via Romenesko
Didn't they use to fire reporters for being sober?
Jim Treacher at April 18, 2008 3:12 AM
Raoul Duke could have told us, but he's dead, Jim.
Flynne at April 18, 2008 6:05 AM
I don't mention the name of my company on my blog because 1) I know they're looking 2) I know that they, and any other major corporation, will not take ANY chances with its reputation.
However, my company is listed on Facebook. Which is why I removed/untagged the pictures of illicit activity. *sigh* the good ol days.
Do I need to start the topic of "what I do when I leave is MY business?" ...and how it, unfortunately, is not true in today's world no matter how badly we want it to be. Or how it should be.
If I show up on time and don't have a job where my/other people's safety is an issue...I shouldn't be bothered by them about how I spend my time outside of work. Again, I realize this isn't the case.
Gretchen at April 18, 2008 7:30 AM
I bet his comment that he works for "this dying medium" didn't help! If they fired him just for being drunk off and writing fuck off the job, that's pretty petty.
Which is why I removed/untagged the pictures of illicit activity. *sigh* the good ol days.
My guess is that employers will have to get in the habit of ignoring photos or videos of illicit activities in future years... at 34 I'm on the cusp of this (and there are a few pics out there I worry about), but those I know who are younger than me document everything in pics and vids and happily release it to internet. I should be OK at my present job, since startups don't tend to sweat that sort of stuff.
justin case at April 18, 2008 10:18 AM
I think the nature of inquiry --especially the kind where you decide whether or not you're going to hire a new employee and start cutting them checks on a regular basis-- means that information of this kind will always be useful to someone, and preserved. Maybe the details of that drunken BJ you gave/received on the street at high noon during that Acapulco spring break in '91 won't actually be in your employee file at the company, but it'll be securely noted in the vault at the investigation firm they've hired.
I think you're right that employers are going to become a little more thoughtful about the ways good people can have fun at parties, but a larger amount of friction is going to accrue in the lives of the people who are pouring all this material into the web.
This brilliant book makes the point that almost all the stuff in your life --all the food scraps, all the clothing, all the paper, all the car parts-- is still out there somewhere. It's not useful, but only a small fraction of it has decayed to where you wouldn't recognize what it was, and much smaller fraction of it has been burned.
Things don't just go away.
Crid at April 18, 2008 11:57 AM
Didn't drinking and swearing used to be in a reporter's job description?
Cousin Dave at April 21, 2008 8:32 AM
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