Write What You Want – But Do It As Yourself.

I’m inclined to believe that every organization that publishes in some form or the other has a kind of censorship.

There is, of course, as I recently learned, such a thing as self-censorship, but, as is the point of this piece I’m writing, that is one person’s own wahala. Freedom of speech is a thing that exists. And though we all have it on our own, sometimes, we do care what other people are going to think of us when we release it to the public. Even if we claim we don’t, there is, at least, an image that we want to put up; a way that we want people to see us. (That image can even be one of a person who just doesn’t care. It’s still an image.) You can, to a large extent, say anything you want, be as controversial as you please, and rage against the machine till you run out of internet data or pages – that is, if you are being self-published.

When you’re writing under an organization, however, it’s a different story. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a blog (not owned by you, of course), a magazine, an anthology…what you contribute automatically becomes less yours and more the publisher’s. and the publishers, like everyone else, has a face to put on – a reputation to keep up. When there’s a fiasco of some sort, perhaps a very controversial article that didn’t go down well with the audience…people will probably skip right over the name of the author and go straight to the cover page or the blog header, naturally assume that one author’s avis (opinion) is representative of the entire publishing company.

I’m speaking as a co-editor of an open blog as well as a co-editor of my school’s magazine.

This is probably why I’m so attached to akotowaa.wordpress.com. It’s mine. No-one is responsible for what I want to say here. I can aggravate the world in peace.

-Akotowaa =)