Since when on earth is it actually illegal to copy and re-send a memo about, say, an anniversary picnic (which is a public event), a memo about changes at the paper that contains no financial or personnel information and which is also being reported elsewhere in the media via company press releases, or a memo about sections changes, retirements, hires, newsprint, parties, anniversary events, changes in editors, etc., etc., etc.? I do not believe that it is technically “illegal” to disseminate such particular information. It may be against a company policy, but it is likely not an illegal act that anyone could be charged with via the criminal courts of the United States criminal justice system.

Also, it is bizarrely ironic that a newspaper that tries to stand up for journalism and reporting and communicating and open public records and reporting things that are usually kept secret is so paranoid and worried about the leaking of some very mundane and average memos about what are really not earth-shattering things. Isn’t this a newspaper that prods sources for news and sometimes uses sources who are also leaking information? So why get upset about someone sharing lame memos?

Finally, does anyone at the Times understand basic p.r.? That paper can publish for 25 years–and still most people have not read a word in it, don’t care about it at all, and don’t even really know anything about it (this is actually very true–as recently as two days ago, some people said they had never read it, never seen it, and they thought it was owned by the people who owned the Star–the Star, which folded in 1981!). So you would think that a money-losing, stigma-attached, low-read paper would welcome any type of exposure and publicity and p.r.– even if it’s bad.

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