Bloggers Under Fire by Powerful People/Companies

It's certainly not the first time that a corporation or individual has blasted bloggers for what they do on their personal sites, or what the comment on other's blogs, but the issue is getting a lot more national attention this week because of two big stories.

John Edwards Chooses Controversial Bloggers for 2008 Presidential Campaign
The Caucus, a political blog on NYTimes.com, reports that despite the controversial nature of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, Edwards feels that the pair are a good option for him during his campaign. Basically, they're entitled to say what they want on their personal blogs, but he expects them to be professional and respect his full set of beliefs while promoting his 2008 presidential campaign.

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwen’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else.
But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake.

I’ve talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word. We’re beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.” More info on this story at NYTimes.com

I think this just goes to show that the popularity and influence of these two bloggers in the blogosphere is very high, and that Edwards camp is confident that whatever they say is going to have a bigger impact on the campaign, than had they gone w/ other bloggers.

The second big story of this week, which I hope is a real one & not some crap made up by you know who (bloggers), focuses on one of the biggest cell phone companies in the nation putting a choke-hold on employee blogging.

Sprint/Nextel Reportedly Will Fire any Employee Blogging About the Company
This is a pretty big statement by one of the largest cell phone service providers in the country. Basically, if you blog about us - be it positive or negative, it will be grounds for termination. An intracompany email sent on Monday by senior council Len Kennedy outlines the policy and describes the concerns that blogging poses on the company's competitive positioning.

Sprint/Nextel employees caught commenting or contributing to online venues, blogs, or consumer report-venues would be researched, identified, and documented via Corporate Security team and fired, announced Sprint senior council Len Kennedy via intracompany email Monday....

The Sprint Executive Service teams monitors online venues for potentially damaging PR or threatening legal issues seeming to arise from internal leaks. More on this story at Consumerist.com

We can only hope that other companies will not follow suit on this and will allow their employees to speak freely about where they work; provided they're not sharing company secrets, etc.