If a future employer ever told David Newland that he couldn’t maintain his personal blog, Zen Canadiana, he would see it as a make or break question. He was one of the journalists at the blogging ethics session, where other journalists said that they were willing to restrict their blogging for their employers.

“I would shake hands, look them in the eye and say, ‘Thank very much, I can’t do that, I need to be able to do this, and so this isn’t a relationship I can have, no hard feelings,” he says. “I do understand the employer’s need to protect themselves and their self image.”

Newland, an assistant managing editor at canoe.ca, has participated in online social networks for years, and believes that’s the reason he was hired at canoe.ca. While he acknowledges that the rules of blogging are being made as we go, he believes that there are just some things that a journalist should know when to not blog about something.

“This is where personal ethics comes in,” he says. “I don’t think it’s my place, in my home blog, to speak about decisions made at work.”

The debate over the ethics of blogging will continue in the wiki entry, where you need an ONA membership to comment.