So I picked up the phone and called John Sutter of CNN.com.
For those who weren't paying attention late last week, he's the guy who put together a piece for the CNN website on people who've been fired for blogging. A piece which conveniently omitted the person who'd recently been fired by CNN for blogging (that would be me). While I don't take the "oversight" all that seriously, as it doesn't surprise me in the least, I admit that I've been curious as to whether anyone on the inside considered it a dereliction of duty not to fully disclose their network's attachment to a story.
For the record, Sutter seems like a good guy and I'm not going to bash him in any way. According to him, he pitched the idea for the story and (I'll let you reach your own conclusions about this) swears that he had never heard of me and had no idea that CNN had ever fired anyone for blogging. It seems like slightly lackluster research to me, given that a New York Times story with the headline "CNN Producer Says He was Fired for Blogging" is one of the first things that pops up if you Google most variations of the phrase "fired for blogging." Once again, though, I'm not slamming Sutter -- mostly because he offered me what little information he felt he could without in any way overstepping his bounds and attempting to speak for the network. (So leave the poor kid alone, CNN management.)
Anyway, there's that.
Make of it what you will.
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