To Bee Or Not To Bee Edited -- Is That The Question?

With the arrival of this morning's New York Times (add italics), which landed in the dirt on the far side of the garden (editor's note: is this relevant to the story? Do we care about author's inept home delivery of the paper or muddy toes?) and required me to get my bare toes muddy while fetching it (run-on sentence, please cut), I have before me an article about weblogs (Web logs per style manual) and whether or not they should be edited. The piece by Michael Falcone, is called "Does An Editor's Pencil Ruin A Web Log? [Okay, I'll stop adding the editorial notes, it's very annoying.]

Of course this piece was prompted by the Sacramento Bee's recent decision to edit Daniel Weintraub's blog California Insider and other blogger's vociferous reactions to such.

To be or not to be edited. That is the question. At least, that seems to be the question in the Times article at least.

To Bee or Not To Bee, I suggest another question entirely, and another answer.

By the time a writer has written a post that he/she knows will be edited, what self-censuring has already taken place? That's my question. A rigid policy like this is antithetical to the spontaneous and FREE nature of blogging. It's all over before it began. There may be freedom of speech, but is there economic freedom of speech? Is a writer who is paid a salary by an employer with such a policy dumb enough in these tough times to really let loose with words that could get them fired? An editing policy is a subtle policy of coercion. The damage has been done long before "An Editor's Pencil" has arrived to edit a blog.

And what about that headline ... how many editors edit with pencils anyway? Don't they edit electronically? Do their editors arrive at work in a coach and four? Do they sport antimacassars on the back of their leather desk chairs?

And when will the New York Times wake up and recover from the antiquated convention of "Web log" -- it's the silliest thing I've ever seen. If you want a real howler to go with "Web log" enjoy some early archived pieces (circa 1990 - 1995) where they referred to something called "electronic mail"

I'll stop picking on the paper and get back to my original point.

What DOESN'T get written? What NEVER sees the light of blog? Is there really economic freedom of speech for paid writers?

Last week I wrote a piece here called "On My Mother's Refrigerator" about the fact that with both my parents dead, I felt a lot more free to write about my life and my family. Later in that day, my older brother called me and started in on a conversation about "I need to talk to you about your blog" which sounded like it was heading in the very same direction, his good advice on what I should and should NOT write on my blog.

I stopped him mid-sentence, and as it was the anniversary of my mom's death, I asked him he'd read my piece and if I could read the piece aloud to him. He had not read it, so he said yes, and I read it to him. It stopped the conversation to be sure, as it was a very emotional piece, but my take-away from the phone call was his duly noted desire to make me NOT write about certain things.

In fact, though many readers would not believe it, there are a lot of personal things I do NOT write about here. And there have been personal pieces I've written and then decided to take down on my own. There are a very few pieces, I think actually only one, that I wrote, someone found offensive and I deleted at their request. Did that person censure me?

How would I feel about my brother's request if he were my editor and I were being paid to write this Web log?

Last week I wrote a piece here about this same issue and suggested this: "If you are a media organization, ask a blogger if they would like to be COPYedited. I think most bloggers would say yes -- I know I would. If you have more than one copy editor, let them pick who they want to work with. Ask if they want to have their editorial content reviewed by an editor. If they don't, rely on them to seek out an editor for more contentious issues relating to politics or decency as the need arises. Write a blogger's pre-nup about their employment with your organization. Nice to spell things out up front. If they don't like your terms from day one, don't start the relationship."

This week I'm perhaps contradicting myself, or at least taking a much stronger stance, but a lot's happened in a week. My brother's request has gotten into my mind, made a deep impression.

Two months ago, I wrote a piece for Harvard Business Review called "A Blogger In Their Midst" which explored an employee blogging counter to the wishes of her employer, which we'll discuss at BloggerCon here next Sunday morning. A thorny topic, sure to inspire a heated debate. I understand there's a good chance some of the writers who provided commentary on the piece in HBR will be there to discuss their opinons as well.

My question remains, "What never gets written?"