He’s become the first professional journalist to be sacked for running a blog, a move that earns his editor at the Houston Chronicle, a minor place alongside spam pioneers Cantor and Spiegel in Net infamy.
Olafson worked for the Chronicle for sixteen years, covering the Brazoria County beat. He also ran a warmly-regarded pseudonymous blog, the Brazosport News, under the name Banjo Jones.
The two proved incompatible for Olafson’s boss, Houston Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen, who told him to “take the fucking site down”, and then dismissed him. ^
I don’t know of anyone who believes in true “free speech,” in that someone will always come up with an exception like posting your credit record on a subway wall or putting child porn in children’s books, but I find this alarming. As you all may know, I worked for “the other paper” back in the day and have never liked the Chronicle, but Jeff Cohen’s actions make me further want to stay away. I don’t think he has the best interests of his paper, or his community, involved. I think this is a control issue by someone terrified about the ground newspapers are losing to blogs and online content.
In that, Jeff Cohen and I share a worry, and I can sympathize with his feelings but not his actions, unless there’s more to this story than our tea-drinking comrades across the sea have revealed. I think however the Chronicle website is doing about the best job it can, in part thanks to the cyber-savvy of technology writer Dwight Silverman, who keeps it alive in parts of the net it otherwise wouldn’t see. Cohen should follow Silverman’s example and reach out to more people instead of trying to defend rapidly eroding turf.