A reporter for a local TV news station recently informed me that internet use by that station's reporters is "filtered" and that, to read our blog or other unauthorized news sources, the reporter must log onto the internet with a personal computer. (The implication is that free access to the internet by (male) employees of the news station had been a "disruptive" influence.) So if TV reporters can't read blogs like ours, which offer an alternative news source and point of view, it means they either have to take initiative and wander off the reservation for information, or, simply watch other TV news stations for story ideas. It is part of the reason why the Onion's recent, "Microsoft Word Now Includes Squiggly Blue Line To Alert Writer When Word Is Too Advanced For Mainstream Audience" is a joke for our times.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Gearing America For The Race To The Bottom ... by gimleteye
A reporter for a local TV news station recently informed me that internet use by that station's reporters is "filtered" and that, to read our blog or other unauthorized news sources, the reporter must log onto the internet with a personal computer. (The implication is that free access to the internet by (male) employees of the news station had been a "disruptive" influence.) So if TV reporters can't read blogs like ours, which offer an alternative news source and point of view, it means they either have to take initiative and wander off the reservation for information, or, simply watch other TV news stations for story ideas. It is part of the reason why the Onion's recent, "Microsoft Word Now Includes Squiggly Blue Line To Alert Writer When Word Is Too Advanced For Mainstream Audience" is a joke for our times.
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6 comments:
So let me get this straight.....
In your world a PRIVATE company has no right to decide whatever services or tools their employees have access to?
We are an editorial blog. You were edited because you wrote about me and I didn't write this blog.
Why doesn't the reporter access the Internet through his smartphone? Proves that most TV reporters are dumb as posts. Good looking, but dumb. (Except Defede, who is neither.).
Perhaps they want their reporters to get off their asses and utilize a new and little utilized invention in modern reporting called "your own research"!
Employers have an absolute right to restrict internet access and email on the system they provide their employees, to business purposes only. Employees should also have no expectation of privacy on employer-provided email systems, nor is free speech required in the workplace.
The Constitution is between the people and their elected representatives, and is not applicable in the relationship between employer and employee.
It may be that the outlet these reporters work for does not espouse the left leaning progressive liberal agenda of Eye on Miami, and therefore restricts the ability of their reporters to access your blog on machines paid for and provided by the comany. Whether anyone agrees with, or does not like that, is irrelevant. They have every legal right to do so and their reporters have every right to work someplace else if they find it onerous and oppressive. That's the beauty of a truly free market. If the news outlet's employment practices are such that no one will work for them, they either go out of business or change their employment practices. No government intervention needed, just the influences prevalent in a free market.
While workplace rules should not be arbitrary or capricious, those that promote efficient and appropriate conduct of business and ensure good order in the workplace are legally legitimate, whether anyone likes it or not. No one forces anybody to work anywhere.
If you were an employer, wouldn't you want control of the use of the capital assests you paid for to provide your employees with the tools necessary to perform their work?
And wouldn't you find it perfectly legitimate if you insisted your employees used them for the purpose you purchased them for, and otherwise conducted themselves in a way that was most efficient to the furtherance of the business you hired them to perform for you?
This is the United States of America, not the United States of Do Whatever You Want Whenever You Want at Work...yet!
long , but good!!
Correct, David, and well said.
Actually, all the local news is actually written by one guy who is working in a small office somewhere in a downtown office.
State news is handled by another guy in Talli. Washington DC stuff is written by someone else.
Amy Goodman is the only one who write her own news these days. She's good, so they let her visit all the blogs she wants. She's allowed to talk to people too, although I don't think she is allowed to go the the RNC conventions anymore.
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