Obviously an issue near and dear to my heart: a writer employed by the Hartford Courant was ordered by the paper to cease publishing a blog on his spare time. The writer, Dennis Horgan, complied, even though the contents of the blog didn't conflict with the travel column he was paid to write by the newspaper. His editor, Brian Toolan, asserted an interesting rationale for silencing Mr. Horgan:

"Denis Horgan's entire professional profile is a result of his attachment to The Hartford Courant, yet he has unilaterally created for himself a parallel journalistic universe where he'll do commentary on the institutions that the paper has to cover without any editing oversight by the Courant," Toolan said. "That makes the paper vulnerable."

The editor added that allowing an employee to set up his own opinion blog was a bad precedent. "There are 325 other people here who could create similar [Web sites] for themselves," Toolan said.

So much for the free press. In the meantime, Mr. Horgan (and the others so situated) should discovery the joys of pseudonymous blogging. Let 325 flowers bloom.