Tag Archives: Blog

Shea Allen and the Confession that got her Fired

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Shea AllenThe last time I talked about a social media post getting someone in trouble it involved a seventeen year girl wearing a bikini. I broke records for number of blog hits! I say, why not try again? Although this time it’s an adult woman and other than apparently going sans-bra now and again there are no racy images.

A young reporter in the great state of Alabama wrote a blog post confessing a few fairly innocuous things and was fired from her job as a reporter at WAAY-TV in Huntsville, Alabama.

The station first asked her to take down the blog and she complied but upon having second thoughts she put it back up defiantly. In the blog she admits to turning off her microphone during interviews if she feels the subject is blithering on too much. She also apparently has failed to wear a bra during a newscast or two. She is disturbed by the elderly and is good at sitting in such a way as to conceal her weight from the camera.

 

** EDIT **

The updated stories indicate Shea was not asked to take down the blog before she was fired. This certainly puts a different light on her actions. I still support her honesty in talking about her real flaws but she seems to be complaining now about the firing. If she posted the blog knowing she was going to be fired that is, in my opinion, admirable and was largely my point in this blog. If that’s not the case, and it appears not to be, then my admiration for her actions is diminished. I still think people should be allowed to express their true opinions without being subject to discipline. That we get a society of people who live in fear of being themselves, of admitting mistakes, and that hurts us in the long run.

** CLOSE EDIT **

I’m not sure what the law is in Alabama but it’s likely the station had the right to fire her. I don’t want to discuss if what she did was a something for which she should be fired, nor do I care to discuss her right to say such things. What I would like to delve into is what sort of society we are creating when we fire people like Shea.

Shea is a product of the modern world. She is not afraid. She posted a few things that people might find offensive and got fired because of it. She didn’t do anything accidentally or without understanding the consequences of her actions. She knew what could happen, what would likely happen, and did it anyway.

If that station doesn’t want me, she seems to say, then I don’t want them.

How can I put this delicately in a way that won’t offend … Hell ya!

Dissent is not a good thing, it’s a great thing. Welcoming opinions that are not your own makes you strong, not weak. Being brave enough to state your mind when you know others won’t like it is an admirable quality. We need brave people standing next to us everywhere, at work, in the line-of-fire, and everywhere in-between.

I’m tired of newscasters getting their talking points from the administrators and having to hear the exact same words on every broadcast.

Somebody hire Shea! FOX, NBC, CNN, ABC, grab this girl and grab her quick. She’s going places. She won’t do what you tell her to do and this country is starving for people like that. Libertarians like me are dying of thirst when we watch the talking heads repeat the mantra doled out by their masters.

Give us water! Give us Shea and people like her.

If you don’t, if you fire everyone strong enough to state an opinion different from the company line, then this nation is doomed. Those who lap up the drivel, who ask you to lie to them and whimper in ecstasy when you do it, they won’t make this country strong again. Right now people like that are winning. This country wasn’t built by yes-men but it sure can be destroyed by them.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 and no sensibilities are spared)
Upcoming Release: The Spear of the Hunt

A Blogger's Friends

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best friendsI’ve been blogging pretty seriously now for well over a year and I state my opinions forcefully. Unlike my fiction novels, what I write here on WordPress is largely based on events in my life and the world. Frequently I recount an incident that happened with a friend and expound upon why I think they were wrong.

I’m not going to partake of false modesty here; I’m a good writer. My words are chosen with care and I’m trying to make bold statements. What I write is intended to make people think. It attacks those with whom I disagree. It’s a particularly unfair attack at that. My opponents do not have their own blog, they cannot easily strike back.

In a conversation there is a back-and-forth exchange of ideas. At least in a good conversation. In a blog the victim of my attack can only sit, read, and fume. If my wrath is directed towards the position of a friend then they can, at a later time, engage me in conversation and try to dissuade me from my opinion. Even with that recourse they still must read my words in silence without chance to rebut publicly. This is clearly frustrating. Maddening even.

You will not be surprised to learn that some of my friends don’t like me as much after a particularly stinging blog. I’m not surprised. I don’t blame them for a moment. I know how frustrated I get listening to the talking heads of the news when I cannot point out the flaws in their logic. I know how angry I get when reading an article or blog that is clearly filled with errors.

I have recourse. I take to my blog and write. People I attack in my blog, both friends and strangers, do not have that option.

I’m not writing this blog post as an apology. If I wrote it in an earlier post, then I meant it. If I make a mistake, and I have, then I’ll try to rectify it in this blog. I’ll apologize in person and in public.

What I’d like to say to my friends here is that if you were my friend before I made a blog post, I still consider you the same friend. If I write my disagreement forcefully in a blog post it is nothing more than I was thinking when you expressed your opinion to me originally. Just because I disagree with you, just because I find one of your positions to be wrong, doesn’t mean that I don’t like you. That I don’t value your friendship, your ideas, our conversations, our time together.

If my blog post forces you to reevaluate our friendship for the worse, I’m sorry. Not for the blog post, but for the loss of a friend.

If I wanted to avoid offending anyone, keep all my friends, say nothing but inanities designed to make people like me, well, I’d get into politics.

Frankly, people don’t like me that much anyway, I’m a bit of an ass. I’m certain that does not come as a surprise to my readers. I’m abrupt, caustic, intolerant of what I deem to be stupid, and just not a good people person. Just ask anyone my mom pays to be my friend!

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist
Current Release: The Sword of Water ($2.99 for 300+ pages of sword and sorcery fun)
Next Release: The Spear of the Hunt