Gagging herself on gag order

McBride always claims she doesn't read liberal blogs. I'm starting to believe her.

She posted this Friday night:

Journal Communications' alleged gag order

Don't expect to see a blog soon from Whitney Gould et al. I'm told that Journal Communications demanded that the journalists who took the "buy out" recently must sign gag orders if they wanted the money. I'm told the individuals who took the buy out had to sign documents promising to never say anything derogatory about the newspaper again. I haven't seen the actual verbiage, so I'm only going on what I heard from a person who actually took the "buy out" and described the limitation that way. I'm not naming that person for obvious reasons. The person said that he/she now could never say anything derogatory about the paper again. He/she said this in a public forum.

There's more, but that's the Top Secret, hush-hush, have-to-protect-my-source part of it.

In case you're curious about who it is, here's something I posted two days earlier, which has been linked from WisOpinion for a couple of days.

Since we're talking gag orders and secrecy here, I have to ask: What are the "obvious reasons" she's not naming "that person," anyway?

Later, she posted an update:

Update: I just noticed another blogger is naming the individual. I was at the forum in question, and even though another media outlet is also doing so, I'm still choosing not to name the former employee, even though it may now be a moot point, because I know how vindictive Journal Communications can be.

She didn't name me, and didn't link to my blog in case someone wanted to know who the person in question was. What on earth is she protecting anyone from? No one signed an agreement saying they wouldn't reveal they had signed a gag order. Good grief, spare us the melodrama! "How vindictive" can they be?

An aside: Although she confuses the issue, either on purpose or through fuzzy writing, her situation in leaving the newspaper was not at all similar to those who just took buyouts, basically amounting to early retirement. She simply quit her job to do something else. There's nothing heroic about that; she didn't turn down money so she could be free to spout off. But if you read the post you might be left with that impression.