The media world is abuzz this week with news that one of their own, CNN producer Chez Pazienza, was fired for blogging. Pazienza had been operating a personal blog, Deus Ex Malcontent, which he used to rant about the industry and his personal life. He never identified himself as a CNN employee, nor did he use his full name, but Pazienza did describe himself as a 16-year veteran of the TV news industry, and he included this photo of himself on the blog. Basically, anyone who knew him would have immediately recognized Pazienza as the blog’s author.

According to a report by the NYT City Room blog yesterday, Pazienza’s blog grew in popularity over the past year, and it was eventually picked up on FARK, and Pazienza was later invited to blog for the Huffington Post. It’s not surprising that Pazienza’s bosses discovered his extracurricular activities, but was it wrong for them to fire him? It probably would have been nice for them to give him a warning or reprimand before showing him the door, but most news organizations do have policies that prohibit employees from privately airing-out their views — in the blogosphere or elsewhere.

In a statement acquired by the NYT, a CNN spokesperson said, “CNN has a policy that says employees must first get permission to write for a non-CNN outlet.” CNN also had reason to look on Pazienza’s blogging with less sympathy than most, because he used the blog as a platform to criticize his former employer, MSNBC, and he voiced political opinions — like the quote below — that aren’t very becoming of a leading, impartial news organization.

“I wake up every morning baffled as to why America hasn’t thrown George Bush and Dick Cheney in prison, Hollywood hasn’t stopped trying to convince me that Sarah Jessica Parker is attractive, gullible soccer moms haven’t realized that they share absolutely no kinship with Oprah, and Fox canceled ‘Firefly,’”

It isn’t just people in the news media that are being fired for blogging though; a cursory Google search of blog-related firings brings up stories of secretaries, flight attendants, and audio engineers — basically every industry you can think of. The most common scenario in which an employee is fired for blogging is when the employee expresses criticism of their employer in the blog, but that isn’t the only thing that can get you into trouble. As for Pazienza, it looks like he missed this little “trend” piece on CNN.com from 2005 that listed “getting fired for blogging” as one of the top “tech trends” of 2005.

Photo of Chez Pazienza from his blog, Deus Ex Malcontent