This is a meme which has arisen in recent days, albeit not in a traditional fashion. First there was the Guardian editorial on Thursday, entitled ‘I blog therefore I am‘ (which ironically I first read in the print edition), talking about the sacking of Paris-based British accountant Catherine Sanderson. It concludes:

There is no doubt that blogging is here to stay, until a future technological innovation overtakes it. In the same way that passing around pornography via workplace email led to a spate of dismissals a few years ago, before companies adapted their codes of conduct to cope with the new technology, so blogging will crop up on the boundaries between work and leisure before new rules are defined. Ms Sanderson is claiming unfair dismissal. It will be interesting to see how she fares. Meanwhile employers will have to get used to bloggers working under their roofs.

Robert Scoble, who should know about corporate bloggers, also threw in his opinion about this case a little while ago:

She won’t be the last one. Blogging is like hopping on stage at a major conference. You wouldn’t do that and start talking smack about your boss, would you? Would you honestly expect to stay employed?

What seems to be emerging here is an attitude in blogging which is that no-one is listening. This is interesting, since if one thinks about it, blogging is essentially attention seeking; the desire for other people to read what you have written and link back to you. It’s why I liked it when I hit the digg front page, because people cared about what I had wrote.

I’m sure Newsnight’s deputy editor (who also wrote an excellent post last week, linked to by Peter) Daniel Pearl is talking about the same thing. He vents his frustration about the fact that when people blog about Newsnight, and people respond, they feel that it is in some way spooky that the BBC is watching them:

The thing I find strange about all this is that often people who write blogs, or contribute to them, somehow think that they are involved in a private forum.

I recently came across a comment claiming Jeremy disliked recording his weekly podcast. I posted a response and the blogger seemed appalled - “the BBC’s watching us - spooky” was his reply. But if you write something about us on the internet surely I have every right to read it and respond - that’s not spooky.

I have to say I find the attitude of bloggers who think that this is spooky very odd. Bloggers need to decide if they want people to read what they write or not. If they do, then they should blog, but if they don’t, they should just email their friends. It’s clear that the new media isn’t for everyone.