Blogging has been encouraged as a means of letting out clogged ideas in the mind of people but to date, most of the scattered ideas have become more of a nuisance rather than a helpful tool in the employee development of most companies. Such has been notable in the turnover rates of employees who find them looking for other jobs mainly because their employers are not to forgiving when they are able to read what they are sharing or hiding to express.

Some companies have gone to the extent of peeping into the personal journals and sometimes, these may bring back unlikely reactions. These reactions may be deemed as just cause for their termination, something that is clearly to watch out for on the part of the employees as a whole.

“A lot of people think they’re protected by the First Amendment in cases where they’re not,” said David Williams, a partner at law firm Morris James LLP in Wilmington, Del., and a past chairman of the employment and labor law section of the Delaware State Bar Association.

Union collective bargaining agreements and individual employment contracts generally say a worker can be fired only for what is known as “just cause.”

Yet, 92 percent of private-sector workers aren’t covered by collective bargaining, and employment contracts usually are limited to high-level executives.

Even though in Illinois, a company has the right to terminate an employee at will, one local attorney believes that without a policy in place, a worker should not be fired for speaking out on an outside-of-the-workplace issue.

“If there is no agreement, then in my opinion, you can say and do whatever you want,” said Al Williams, a Dixon attorney who specializes in workman’s compensation cases.

Broad statements on workplace free speech can be hard to make though, according to Williams, because company policies and situations can be so varied.

“It is very case-by-case and deal-by-deal, but an employer has to give a reason for firing you, they can’t just do it,” Williams said. – Let the bloggers beware: Companies’ rules may restrict what employees can and can’t say

[tags]blogger, problogger, employee rights, collective bargaining, CBA[/tags]

In the same way that journalists are being given protection rights, bloggers are now being given the same right in the height of some controversies on freedom of the blogs with regards to how bloggers carry out their opinionated views. Such has become an issue and has produced various conflicts left and right. With the new proposed bill, their protection can now be covered, something that has been long overdue.

The House of Representatives has amended the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 to include provisions to protect bloggers from being required to divulge their sources under certain situations in the same way as journalists. Instead of requiring journalists to be tied to a news organization, the bill now defines “journalism” to focus more on the function of the job: “the gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.”

Introduced last week by Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA), the bill is meant to offer a federal version of reporter “shield” laws that are in place in some 32 states in the US. Legislation at state level has struggled in the past to determine exactly how to define journalism, with bloggers who don’t often write for traditional news organizations finding themselves in a murky gray area. However, in 2006, a California court ruled in favor of two rumor sites (often considered “blogs”)—AppleInsider and Powerpage—after they divulged details about unreleased Apple products. The ruling concluded that there was no relevant legal distinction between journalistic blogging and journalism when it came to the shield law.

The Free Flow of Information Act was reworked after its introduction with the specific intent of including bloggers under the broader definition of journalism. According to a section-by-section analysis of the bill, “The act would apply to web logs (‘blogs’) that engage in journalism.” Although the law is not likely meant to include every person who writes on the Internet, it doesn’t create a litmus test for what constitutes “engaging in journalism.” – New bill to give bloggers same shield law protection as journalists

[tags]blogger news, blog news, blog freedom, journalism, newspaper[/tags]

Blogs have been getting the various criticisms for their open minded input of thoughts and for one yellow journalist, hitting on blogs as a hopeless form of ticket towards getting into the journalism biz was clearly stated.

But the question is, do bloggers have that drive to grab a career in journalism? Perhaps not. Blogging is freedom to express but this does not mean that they are inclined towards pursuing a journalism career. Threatened perhaps? Whatever the case may be, blogging should not be considered as a form of stepping stone towards journalism and this attack is becoming more of a defense mechanism for journalists who seem to feel a threat from bloggers who simply want their voices heard.

Eric Berlin calls Bullard’s column “a hateful, condescending piece” and suggests Bullard turn on his brain before attacking the blogosphere.

Vinny Lingham calls Bullard

a “fool with no understanding of new media and it’s impact on society….This is exactly the mentality that is leading to the decline of offline print as a source of information, because the people entrenched in the offline world are so resistant to change, they cannot keep up with the times.”

Vincent Maher calls the column “a dazzling display of arrogance.”

Says Pierre deVos, “Bullard seems to be rather kind, actually.” But then he notes:

[Bullard] claims that the content in the Sunday Times is of a certain quality because it has been through editing processes. But one only has to skim that newspapers pages to be made aware of the sorry state of journalism in South Africa. Sometimes I wonder whether those people get paid to write so badly about such brain curdling boring issues. The New York Times it ain’t.”
Ironically, on the same day, The Times also published “Business Missing Out on Blogging,” which notes:
“Blogs tend to be rich in fresh information and relevant news. More importantly, this information can be commented on by the people who visit the blog site. So it is not just a flat brochure, like a website…” – “Professional” Journalist Spews Hateful Attack on Blogosphere

Call it crazy, but the widespread crackdown of people abusing the law and taking them toward higher levels for that matter has totally gone out of hand. The latest blow was the reported imprisonment of an Egyptian journalist named Huwaida Mitwalli for reporting a supposed torture in Egypt.

This is totally outrageous and surely violates the acclaimed freedom of the press. Authorities have had their problems on upholding the law and properly identifying the proper means of holding back information. While everyone knows that hot news is the actual bread and butter of journalists, being convicted for reporting something that is indeed factual is totally ridiculous today. Things are simply becoming personal and abusive in any nation at this point.

The sentencing of Al-Jazeera journalist Huwaida Taha Mitwalli to six months in prison for her reporting on torture in Egypt makes a mockery of World Press Freedom Day, Human Rights Watch said today.

Mitwalli, an Egyptian national who also reports for the London-based daily Quds al-Arabi, was convicted by a Cairo criminal court on May 2 for “possessing and giving false pictures about the internal situation in Egypt that could undermine the dignity of the country” in connection with an Al-Jazeera documentary about torture in Egypt. The court also fined her 20,000 Egyptian pounds (US$3,518).

“Egypt’s sorry record of torture is only made worse by its practice of punishing journalists who dare to speak about it,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. – Egypt: Prison for Al-Jazeera Journalist Who Exposed Torture

[tags]blog news, blogger news, freedom of the press, politics, law[/tags]

In the same way that blogging has become a freedom of speech the same has been given to the responsibility that arise from making such remarks. All bloggers know that they are responsible for all the remarks that they make and the impact it would have and corresponding penalties that include imprisonment are included.

LONDON April 20 (UPI) — The European Union’s Racism and Xenophobia Directive could cause a blow to Europe’s blogging community, making them directly responsible for their posts.
Bloggers face three-year jail sentences if their remarks on the Internet are “carried out in a manner likely to incite violence or hatred,” Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported Friday.

“There is potential for this to have worldwide application. Free speech is at the center of blogging. Part of the reason bloggers can tell the truth is because it is difficult to pin them down. This law tries to do it,” said Chris Mounsey, 29, and the man behind “The Devil’s Kitchen” blog.

The new laws are set to be in place by 2010.

It is not only bloggers who are upset about the new laws, the Telegraph said.

British Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, said: “We don’t need yet more law to combat racial hatred and incitement to violence. We already have British law dating back to 1861.” – Blogging in Britain has become a privilege

[tags]racism, blogging, blogger, problogger, current events[/tags]

Among the headliners today include that of the growing popularity and significant impact that blogs have been getting. Blogs are becoming a reality and the freedom of speech has been obviously focused upon.

But blogs also have their share of being criticized. They are said to be ruining the validity of claims and the consistency of reports by allowing both notable and superficial probloggers the freedom to blog or write on anything that they wish.

But if people would ask on the code of conduct, this is something that has yet to be resolved as it has been seen all over media channels worldwide.

The major media are unhappy with the state of the blogosphere. Most blogs are full of obscenities and puerile analysis of issues. They print letters that say, “Hey, man, go, go, go! Give the fuckers hell.” Such wit and depth of commentary never finds it way into the august pages of the NY Times. The blog writers, too, are tasteless and stunningly superficial. The Internet is the triumph of democracy. Everyone’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s. This exasperates the staid press. More exasperating is that not many people are reading the “important” newspapers. The readership is in terrible decline. Daily Kos has a much larger readership than the Times has. Cumulatively, the political blogs make the print media look like a small band of 8-year olds banging on the door at Fort Knox, demanding to be let in so as to carry off the gold.

Pundits like Fred Barnes and Morton Kondracke assure their old-fashioned viewers and listeners that blogs carry no political weight. “Nobody” pays attention to them. “Nobody” means power-brokers inside the Beltway where Fred and Mort hang out. In some way, they are right. Blogs have little direct influence on American policies home or abroad but they do exert a great deal of indirect influence, and it is growing by leaps and bounds. Bloggers are also becoming a regular presence on TV chat shows. Think of Andrew Sullivan, Michelle Malkin and the ever delightful Ann Coulter.

The media attack on the blogs serves no useful purpose. If the mainstream media do not like them then they should adopt the strategy of Neglect. As blogs grow, they inevitably want more recognition. Bloggers are, for the most part, very young and impatient to get things done. Neglect is frustrating and exasperating. If the media continue to howl in indignation, this will play into the hands of bloggers. They need to change course. The Attack on Blogs by Sidney Gendin

So the prophecy on technology advancement has been fulfilled in a way, but blogging was never seen to be something that was included in it. Sure, there will be the familiar phrase that businesses need technology…but with bounds of course.

Blogging has been something that has provided an overall view of what to expect today, but however, the freedom of speech in blogging has slowly made people getting out of sync that they end up getting into trouble rather than benefiting from it.

Such has been something that most companies have seen today, hence leading to people preferring technology breakthroughs but excluding the use of blogs. The blogs are getting out of hand and this can be seen by their power in controlling their superiors today rather then the other way around. Hence this alone is a conflict that is posing a threat towards establishing better ties rather than creating gaps.

“I will venture to suggest that most managers are afraid of blogs. Very few blog themselves and when they do, it runs through the marketing or PR departments. Managers in general still worry about loss of control with blogs. Letting their employees and consumers into the conversation and allowing them their say frightens them.
That’s a huge mistake. Check out Jeff Jarvis’ post about Dell. He and Dell got into quite a pushing match some time about his terrible experience with a Dell laptop. He triggered a major rehaul at Dell that included building blogs and consumer conversation sites that helped the company remake itself and its reputation.

The great challenge to companies these days is to learn how to let consumers in, how to open a conversation with them that is honest and real. It looks like lots of managers have yet to get that signal. Wait until they get their own Dell Hell.” [Corporations like Web 2.0 but Not Blogs. They're Afraid of Their Own People.

[tags]blogs, blog news, online biz, online investment, technology, e-commerce[/tags]

Apparently, the new dawn of article and content writing has been through a lot of criticism, especially blogging which puts strong emphasis on freedom of speech. However, due to the incontrollable circumstances, Marketwatch has made an exception to the rule to accommodate one of its prized writer, Ms. Bambi Francisco as long as their no conflict of interest with regards to her regular work and blogging.

“Conflicts and potential conflicts are something that journalists deal with every day,” Callaway said. “We often have to deal with them on a case-by-case basis and find separate solutions. We feel that the guidelines we set up work.”

Francisco is not allowed to write about any of the companies that make pitches through Vator, Callaway said, and she is not allowed to be Thiel’s “marketing department,” a shorthand way of saying she’s supposed to steer clear of writing in favor of Thiel’s interests.

Callaway acknowledged that Francisco’s business relationship with Vator is unprecedented at MarketWatch. But when it comes to “solutions,” Callaway said some of the practices adhered to for decades by traditional newspapers, magazines and television newsrooms may not be relevant in the Internet Age.

“You can’t just totally rewrite the rules,” Callaway said. “But there needs to be some happy medium…the rigid rules of the past may not always apply to new media. Is there a potential for a conflict in Bambi’s case? Yes. Do I think we can avoid it? Yes.”

Callaway emphasized that he was speaking only for MarketWatch and not for the entire Dow Jones company.

It already appears that Francisco has had difficulty adhering to the rules Callaway described. On November 7, Francisco wrote about a company called Powerset. The piece was penned two months after Francisco entered into her business deal with Thiel.

“Now I’m not one to get overexcited about a new technology, especially when a company keeps it mysteriously in stealth mode,” Francisco wrote. “But in the case of Powerset–which received loads of blogger attention about its existence without any coverage about the actual product–there actually is a lot of substance behind the intrigue…Indeed, searching with Powerset was a far richer and more liberating experience than what you get with the rivals.” –Cnet News.

Even bloggers will have their day in court. Such was shown by Internet blogger Mark Nickolas when the Fletcher administration purposely blocked his site, www.Bluegrass.org from access. Nickolas has been known to religiously criticize politicians and Gov. Ernie Fletcher happens to be one of them.

Here are some excerpts:

FRANKFORT, Ky. A federal judge refused to dismiss a free-speech lawsuit filed by a political commentator against Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell on Friday referred the case filed by Internet blogger Mark Nickolas to a federal magistrate to manage the exchange of evidence in the case and to conduct a settlement conference “as he deems appropriate.”

The Fletcher administration blocked state employees from surfing various Internet categories, including entertainment and humor, online auctions and Web logs, known as blogs.

Nickolas, represented by the Washington-based advocacy group Public Citizen, claims in the lawsuit that the Fletcher administration singled him out, blocking access to his Web site, www.BluegrassReport.org.

Nickolas has used his site to criticize various politicians, including Fletcher.

The lawsuit contends the state infringed on Nicholas’ rights under both the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

The state produced a list of Web sites that were blocked, in addition to the political blog. That list included religious sites, blogs operated by newspapers and one University of Kentucky Web site. Editor and Publisher

[tags]blogger, blog network watch, disputes, politics, kentucky[/tags]

All over the world, every nation has their share of the millions of bloggers that are spread everywhere. It has come to a point that legal reforms and intervention has become a need. But for Isaac Mao, the intent to assist the flourishing power or blogging and use it as a means for helping the country as a whole has been his vision.

Freedom of expression is obviously what blogs offer. But depending on the area of concern, blogs have been known to affect politics and sensitive issues in China, becoming a reason for them to clamp down a bit in allowing Chinese bloggers to watch what they express. But considering that ballooned rate of bloggers in China to 20.8 million bloggers to date.

It was spring 2002 when Isaac Mao, a Shanghai-based software engineer for US chipmaker Intel, first came across Internet blogs.

He was immediately struck by the freedom of expression the online journals offered ordinary citizens, and with a fellow blogger from a remote part of east China’s Fujian province he set up CNBlog.org, China’s first online discussion forum about blogging technology.

“We discussed how blogs may change China,” Mao said in an interview. “We didn’t imagine how this would make social and even political changes to the whole Chinese community in the next five years.”

In Communist Party-ruled China, the media — including the regular Internet — is tightly controlled by the government.

But blogs offer a means of dodging the censors, allowing more freedom of expression and, ultimately, freedom of thought.

“It’s only natural for human beings to express themselves and share their views. But the Chinese people have been repressed for so long and they have always kept silent. They couldn’t find an exit,” Mao said.

“They need this tool to give them the freedom to express themselves. Blogs can be a very empowering tool to them,” he said. – The Raw Story

[tags]bloggers, probloggers, politics, revenue[/tags]