Another Fairfax journalist gets rude on Twitter

Goaded by a fellow Twitterer:

had enough of attacking the gays for now i see.

Fairfax columnist Miranda Devine goes all snarky:

you've had enough of rogering gerbils I see.

This probably seemed clever and witty at the time but Devine, having thought about it, and only just written a column about Catethine Deveny's Twitter indiscretions, deleted the entry. A concerned Lefty worries that, unlike Deveny, who was told her services are no longer required, Devine will suffer no real consequences.

The unspoken concern here is that Deveny's editor made a decision to terminate her based on what he thought were the best interests of The Age. Lots of people have suffered job related consequences following online indiscretions. Which explains why primary school teacher and Crikey contributor Scott Bridges deleted his leisure-time, hey-look-at-me, I'm-really-funny blog post "Just plain wrong" concerning the contents of an old (1994) educational brochure:

Online comments and postings can have repercussions, of course, so the Left should simply acknowledge that The Age's decision to distance itself from Deveny was a long time coming and was perhaps overdue. Devine on the other hand produces insightful and well-argued columns and is unlikely to receive so much as a "please explain" email as a result of an uncharacteristic lapse of judgment. The bottom line: it's a matter of value to the commercial welfare of Fairfax.

Update: Different rules apply to conservatives:

Devine won’t get any real trouble for it because hate speech coming from conservative writers is popularly regarded as taking a stand against political correctness, while uncomfortable comments from a Deveny are an unacceptable moral danger.

Hate speech? Not even.