Watch Your Mouth

Free Expression Can Be Costly When Bloggers Bad-Mouth Jobs (washingtonpost.com)

But Mosteller, 25, said the blog was one of the reasons she was given for losing her job, and she is still in shock. "Considering I treated the blog as a smoke break, I didn't think of it as a problem."

I take a dim view of companies that fire people for saying things outside of work. I think it is particularly deplorable when the company is an institution putatively devoted to free speech, such as a newspaper. However, it is an unpleasant reality that some companies can and will fire employees for what they say outside of work.

Like any potentially powerful tool, a blog deserves to be treated with respect. Sometimes that means taking some care about what we say.

People groom themselves before they present their persons to the world. Similarly, a blog is a public persona, which should at least receive the same amount of care as choice of a necktie, polished shoes, a clean shave, and combed hair.

Update: On a more sinister note, Robert Ehrlich's staff member Joseph Steffen also paid for the illusion that he was not accountable for his blogging.