| A rumor floating around about Blogging for Michigan's blocked access in the state Senate is just that, the chief of staff to Sen. Mike Bishop said today.
The rumor that a specific staffer in the Senate was, in fact, Grand Rapids blogger Wizardkitten started circulating soon after access to Blogging for Michigan was blocked in the state Senate. The rumor prompted Wizardkitten to unmask herself in a BFM post.
But, Matt Miner, chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, said wizardkitten's identity wasn't the issue.
The issue with wizardkitten is not true. The issue is much more simplistic. We were of the belief that state employees were engaging in blogging on non-state related issues and decided to block access to the site. Our suspicions were confirmed when the Secretary of the Senate received complaints about access to the site.
A subsequent inquiry for additional information -- about what non-state related issues, and how the argument that the decision was prompted by work ethics jibes with comments that criticism of Senate Republicans played some role -- was sent shortly before this posted. Updates will be made as appropriate depending on responses.
Update! Miner says last week's MIRS report citing criticism on Blogging for Michigan misquoted him. From an e-mail today:
Actually, the quote in MIRS is completely inaccurate. My statement to them was "we don't ban sites because they say bad things about Republicans". My example to them was MichiganLiberal.com. They don't always say flattering things about us, which proves my point.
If he was misquoted, he's neglected to inform MIRS. MIRS news editor Kyle Melinn, in a phone interview this afternoon, says that no one's contacted the news service asking for a correction, and that there are no plans to take the report down from the site's Web site. |
