If CNN had instituted a blog publishing policy for employees, say, a year ago, they might have never had to fire Chez Pazienza, the American Morning producer who was axed without severance in February when brass found the content of his writing objectionable, but not that he was writing online. (Things like "Pat O’Brien is the single most ridiculous human being currently sucking down oxygen" is, apparently, not kosher to CNN.) But now CNN does have a rulebook for any staffers who would like to stuff a LiveJournal with drivel! And Pazienza himself has a copy of it.

CNN wants staffers to avoid taking public positions on virtually everything, because the network is in the business of reporting the news without bias, and even those not part of the news gathering process could impact the public perception of CNN.

Generally, then, staffers should only be blogging, posting on Facebook, uploading to Youtube, or trolling in Second Life things that "CNN would not report on." What falls into this list? A quick scope of CNN.com means no blogging about gorillas, Mars, earthquakes or storms, food or coffee, celebrities, or robots.

So what can CNN staffers blog about?

Based on the network completely ignoring it, they're free to post endlessly on the John Edwards mistress scandal!