Should Journalists Be Allowed To Publicly Criticize Their Employers?

I did this at my college paper. Wrote a snarky notes column lead making fun of the way our editorial page was being run. The editor who started the year had been pushed out and they replaced her with the co-president of a campus activist group.

So, of course, more than half of the columns that ran pushed his agenda rather than providing any level of objectivity and everybody knew it. They also all but ignored a bus strike that was going on in the town, which was crippling for a commuter campus with limited parking.

My sports editor at the time reads it, gives me a dirty look and says my name loudly as if to complain, then says "fuck it" and lets it run.

I got a lecture from the paper's editor-in-chief. Lucky for me, the news editor, who was also his girlfriend, didn't take over until the following year or they would have banned me from the staff. He had a sense of humor. She didn't.

To this day I firmly believe that the editorial page deserved to be ripped. I also came to realize I was way out of line doing it. It was the most unprofessional thing I've ever done in my career and I still regret it, no matter how many attaboys I got for the column.

 

Well, hell yes. If you write a book, you gotta be prepared that not everyone is going to like it. And if you can't take it, tough tit.

 

Tough tit? I'll have to use that tomorrow in a negotiation.

You asked a question, I was giving an example of how newspapers frequently print negative opinions of their employees' work.

So what was your point? That if employers can criticize their writers, then writers should be able to reciprocate?

 

My point was that it's not good to shit where you eat, for the company or you. You can't win.