Not too long ago Robert Peek, a PR professional and Director of Corporate Communications at Jacksonville Port Authority, criticized me for using an obscene/profane word in a column I write for Talent Zoo. Robert felt my use of the word was "gratuitous" and not in keeping with who I am and the kind of work I do (corporate communications in particular). So I asked the webmaster to edit the column for me to remove the offending word.
I had called b******* on corporate communicators who claimed ignorance of social media ethics or suggested that emerging media was a frontier of communications that presented new and unforeseen ethical challenges. These claims are a dodge, the timeless virtues of ethical behavior still apply, and it's not that hard to know when you are being deceptive or manipulative. Unless of course you're immoral to begin with. But I digress.
Robert made some excellent points, and responded unemotionally and with a well reasoned argument against my use of the word. After some reflection, I decided to change the editorial, replacing b******* with Nice try. I even turned to a colleague, fellow Talent Zoo columnist Jocelyn Brandeis of JBLH Communications, who gave me invaluable help with the edit. It works almost as well and has changed the editorial from PG-13 to G. This was a case in which I felt I needed to honor the conversational aspect of social media. What good are a blog, RSS feeds, pings, trackbacks and commenting if I ignore the comments and criticisms I get? I certainly don't ignore the praise.
Which leads me to the questions in this post's title. Was I influenced by Robert, or was I censored? Was changing the editorial, something I have rarely done except in the case of a fact error or misspelling, a valid compromise or did I compromise my integrity? You're the experts. What do you think?
Tags: editorial integrity, obscenity, profanity, joel postman, robert peek, influence, censorship, Jocelyn Brandeis
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