FC: Reporter fired for sending email nastygram to politico

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue Aug 13 2002 - 22:05:26 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Student disciplined for taping Tipper Gore: "Stolen property!""

    ---
    
    From: "Ben Silverman" <editorat_private>
    To: <declanat_private>
    Subject: Re: Yahoo/China and Congressman Bill Thomas
    Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 03:48:07 -0400
    
    Declan:
    
    Two items I wanted to point out to you.
    
    On the Yahoo/China story; Reports Without Borders issued a letter on the
    subject last month to little fanfare. I was surprised it received no
    coverage (though I republished it in my newsletter). A link to their letter:
    http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=2959
    
    On another issue. After reading a story on Jim Romenesko's Media News about
    a L.A. Times sportswriter named Brian Robin being fired because of an email
    he sent to Congressman Bill Thomas, I became incensed and wrote the
    following in my newsletter today:
    
    PART II - I, ON THE GOVERNMENT (http://www.dotcomscoop.com/081202.html#govt)
    
    § California Congressman Bill Thomas, the Chairman of the powerful Ways and
    Means Committee, gets The Punk of The Week Award. Thomas showed he is a true
    patriot when in an act of pure pettiness he cost a hard-working American his
    job. Reacting to a televised interview with Thomas, Los Angeles Times
    sportswriter Brian Robin shot off a nasty email to Thomas. Robin covers high
    school sports and golf for the paper's Ontario, CA edition. Robin,
    admittedly, made the grand mistake of sending the email from his LATimes.com
    account (he says his own email server was down). Robin made no mention of
    his profession in the email, signing it simply, "Brian Robin, Lancaster,
    CA." Thomas' office later called Robin to confirm he worked for the paper.
    Not long after, Robin was called before his superiors, suspended and then
    eventually fired for violating corporate policy of using company resources
    for personal use.
    
    The Tribune-owned Times had every right to fire Robin for violating company
    policy, that is if the company fires every other person who uses the
    company's email server or phones for personal use. But it's doubtful The
    Times adheres to this policy and thus the paper, in my opinion, kowtowed to
    a government official and spit in the face of freedom of speech. It is
    likely that Thomas, or his staffers, put pressure on The Times and the paper
    dumped Robin to avoid a bigger problem. "I would love to be able to confront
    Bill Thomas and ask him why he or his staff are so thin-skinned and ask them
    why they did this to my career and my family. And I'd also like to ask them
    if they'd have contacted the Times if the e-mail had been some complimentary
    thing. All I did was exercise my right of free speech, and it got completely
    blown out of hand," Robin told LA Weekly.
    
    Thomas' actions are pure evil and can't be justified. He ratted someone out
    to their employer because they expressed their opinion. I guess this is what
    that TIPS program will be all about. Imagine losing your job because of an
    email you sent to an elected PUBLIC SERVANT. Thomas doesn't seem to realize
    he works for me, you and Brian Robin and that by representing citizens,
    every single action and statement of his that affects the public is subject
    to scrutiny. I don't know much about Thomas, but this incident suggests to
    me that he's a little turd of a man. A spineless little fart who abused his
    power and needs to be nailed for it (I suggest contacting the House
    Committee on Standards and Ethical Conduct). Bill Thomas epitomizes
    everything that is wrong with our government. Hey Bill, I write for a
    newspaper, are you going to contact my editors because I wrote this? Let's
    see if you can get two people fired, jerkoff.
    
    Read the story: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/38/news-angel.php
    Read Robin's email to Thomas:
    http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/38/news-angel2.php
    Contact the House Committee on Standards and Ethical Conduct:
    http://www.house.gov/ethics/CommitteeAddress.htm
    Email Congressman Bill Thomas: mailto:bill.thomasat_private or call his
    press office at 202-225-8933
    
    ---------------------------------------------------------
    
    Ben Silverman
    Publisher, DotcomScoop.com
    Columnist, The New York Post
    AIM: BenMedddle
    http://www.dotcomscoop.com
    Dotcom Scoop news, every Monday, only in The New York Post
    
    
    
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
    You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
    To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
    This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
    Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
    Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q\clan
    CNET Radio 9:40 am ET weekdays: http://cnet.com/broadband/0-7227152.html
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Aug 14 2002 - 06:34:32 PDT