Shea Allen, a former reporter at a TV station in Huntsville, Ala., made a similar, albeit different, mistake.
Shea was fired after she posted on her personal blog a top 10 list of "confessions" from her work as a TV reporter. These ranged from mild, "I'm better live when I'm not reading from a script" to the audacious, "I've gone bra-less on TV and no one noticed."
I highly doubt Shea was fired for those two, it's the bulk of the rest of the list that make her appear as someone who may take her job for granted. From sleeping in the news van (though I suspect that probably happens a lot, especially when you're covering a story all day) to refusing to interview "old people" and even admitting to literal smiling and nodding is a wee bit much from an employer-point-of-view. It's as if she's lost all job integrity.
Now, was her firing extreme? I know that I probably would have fired an employee for writing some of those things. I do know for certain that Shea Allen is more famous now than she would ever have been as a reporter in Huntsville, Ala.
When writing blog posts, whether here or on behalf of clients, there are a few important rules to follow:
- There is no such thing as privacy on the Internet.
- Obey the Golden Rule: do unto others as you'd have done to you.
- If it's not something you'd say to their face, don't say it online.
These are all logical, but perhaps we could all stand to hear them every once in a while.
