May 25, 2012

My Life as a Blog: The Ethics of Blogging

by Reid Rosefelt | Published October 11, 2010

This week I was a bit stressed out and I started thinking about the worst experience I ever had in the publicity business. I wrote about a certain film and I thought it was really funny. Lots of what I thought were amusing stories about depressed people doing absurd things they shouldn’t do. And me in the middle wallowing in all that delicious failure. I took all the names out so it wouldn’t be mean, of course. The problem was I wrote it far too quickly and didn’t take the time to see how easy it would be for some film-savvy folks to identify the film. Of course, someone figured out the title of the movie right away.

All of a sudden I didn’t think my post was funny anymore. I felt like an asshole. So I took it down.

That is the risk with blogging. I try to come up with something entertaining and interesting each week, usually taking things from my life. But sometimes I’ve written complete posts that I’ve thrown in the garbage for one reason or another. For example, when Tony Curtis died, I wrote a post on him. It’s a story about an encounter I had with him that I’ve told my friends for years. It’s a pretty good story. But the timing was all off and I didn’t run with it.

I have a job that keeps me pretty busy. Every Sunday I try to get another post up and, in this case, there wasn’t enough time to think it through.

I’m not going to say that I might not write something very similar to this story in the future. But I will only do it when I have the time to disguise the characters so that no one could ever figure out who I was talking about.

Reid Rosefelt is a veteran film publicist based in New York City. He has promoted hundreds of films, for such diverse moviemakers as Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar, Errol Morris, Ang Lee and Werner Herzog. His personal clients have included The Sundance Institute, IFC and HBO Films, as well as Harvey Keitel, Ally Sheedy and the late Adrienne Shelly. His production publicity credits include Desperately Seeking Susan, The Godfather: Part III and, most recently, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. His blog can be found at http://my-life-as-a-blog.com/.

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Comment by Dallas Divorce Lawyer on 10/19/10 at 4:58 pm: The power of the internet is probably what draws us to it. But as you mention, sometimes that power will lend us the opportunity to be reckless. I am sure that regular readers will appreciate strong ethics just as much as regular posts. Jackasses are entertaining, but only for a little while.
Comment by Tony on 10/29/10 at 4:50 pm: We all get ahead of ourselves sometimes. Just have to be more careful in the future but sometimes we have to learn the hard way. I love your blog though.
Comment by Fahad on 11/01/10 at 8:13 am: Can say that
“All is well that ends well”
But if its opposite then all is dumb. No matter how much effort you have inducted. Being careful is the only way to avoid such situations.
Comment by Tommy on 11/07/10 at 7:52 pm: Ethics are just morals and depending on where you are from or what you believe will depend on the bloggers writings. Glad to read yours are about entertaining things!
Comment by Reid on 11/08/10 at 10:50 am: What I learned is that if I want to tell an anecdote I either have to have the guts to name names, or if I don’t, put a lot of time into disguising it. But when you do that, it raises the question of whether the story is then worth telling, as the fun and potential insight are in the details. I know I’ll keep struggling with this.