I’m Not Going to Say I Got Dooced, But I Did

I hate mentioning her by name because, while I acknowledge she is a good writer and an accomplished photographer, I just can’t be bothered reading Dooce’s journal. (Why? Because of her no-comments policy, see yesterday’s long-ass post about that.)

But the fact of the matter remains that Dooce inadvertently coined the term “dooced” when she got fired from her job some years back because of her blog. That is, by and large, why she’s so immensely popular now as a so-called blogger. She got in on the ground floor, so to speak. Now anytime someone gets fired because of their blog, they call it getting Dooced. I’m here to change that. From now on, we’re going to call it getting Karled.

That’s right, in case you missed it on Twitter yesterday afternoon, I have been fired as a columnist for one of the local newspapers in town. Why? In short, because of this post. I have been reproducing my regular Monday column here on Mondays pretty much for the last 2-1/2 years I’ve been writing the column. Not any more.

It wasn’t the column itself that got me fired. I spoke with my editor on the phone yesterday afternoon to ask what was going on and to apologize. Yes, I apologized because it was never my intention to hurt her or anyone else at the newspaper. She told me that they had been planning to run the column in next Monday’s paper, but she needed to get permission from other editors first. Understandable.

I certainly never intended to come off as slamming the newspaper. But as my editor told me, it wasn’t the column that they had a problem with. It was the COMMENTS on the post. She was on vacation all last week, so really didn’t have a chance to talk to me about why they didn’t have any people at the charity event. They DID make arrangements to get photographs from some of the people that were in attendance, but couldn’t do the overtime necessary to send out a full-time photographer. I jumped the gun and made assumptions I shouldn’t have made. For that, I take responsibility.

I always took great care not to mention the newspaper by name here, and I never gave out my blog URL in the column, either. It’s a family newspaper and I would never send people to my blog indiscriminately because I swear like a sailor lots of the time.

Nevertheless, someone at the newspaper found my blog and brought it to other people’s attention on Monday. Having worked in close-knit cubicle environments before, I know how quickly word spreads like wildfire in an office. I’m sure it didn’t take much time at all for my blog to make the rounds. At least it’s a nice, new pretty blog design.

I’m upset, yes, for several reasons. For one thing, I should have been more judicious about my comments on the blog. I should have also called and talked to my editor before posting Monday’s post and leaving subsequent comments. But I’m also kinda pissed because what the fuck? This is MY blog and I have the right to say whatever the hell I want to say. I never expected or asked anyone at the newspaper to look at my blog. On purpose. I realize I’m not everyone’s cup of tea.

I certainly wouldn’t have made those comments on the newspaper’s web site. That really WOULD be unprofessional. But on my own blog? Bah.

I’ve been Karled. So yeah, I’m looking for more writing gigs now. If you know of any, please let me know. I promise I’ll be a (relatively) good boy from here on out. Maybe I just shouldn’t run any future columns here, to be safe.