Yearly Archives: 2018


Dealing with FDA censorship

Writers in every country can run into governmental censorship. The USA is among the freest, but there are some areas where businesses can get into legal trouble for publishing truthful statements that aren’t state secrets. The FDA is one of the biggest censors of truthful speech. With certain products, it isn’t enough for the manufacturer’s statements about them to be true. They have to be approved. More precisely, making certain truthful statements about smokeless cigarettes, which contain no tobacco, miraculously turns them into “modified risk tobacco products” which are subject to tobacco regulations.

'No' symbol over word 'censorship' I can say what I want about e-cigarettes on this blog, since I don’t produce or sell them and I’m not getting paid by anyone who does. But if a business that sold them asked me to write something for them, I’d have to be careful. I might not be able to say that they don’t contain tobacco, even though they don’t. I couldn’t point out that they’re far less dangerous than real cigarettes.

Legal writer Jonathan Adler, in the Washington Post, writes about the prohibition: “FDA regulation of e-cigarettes is not only bad for public health but also is likely unconstitutional. Insofar as the federal Tobacco Act, and the FDA’s implementing regulation, prohibit product makers and sellers from making factually true statements about their products, they likely violate the First Amendment.”

Nonetheless, A lawsuit against the FDA lost and, as far as I can tell, ran out of appeals. The ruling is long, and I can’t figure out from it how it justifies the speech prohibition. It seems to just take it for granted. The part of the ruling which claims to show that products with no tobacco are “tobacco products” is preposterous hand-waving, so I shouldn’t expect much sense from anything in the ruling.

Concerns for writers

It’s very unlikely the FDA would go after me personally for anything I wrote for a customer. (But don’t take anything here as legal advice.) The issue is that to write something which the customer could safely publish, I’d have to be careful to state only government-approved facts. Companies sometimes run articles past their legal departments to minimize the chance of regulatory trouble. This could result in nitpicking rewrites or even rejection of a perfectly good article. If you get into this situation, understand that the customers are just protecting themselves.

The tobacco industry loves it when e-cigarette makers can’t tell people all about their products. So do the nannies who think people should be prohibited from taking any risk, even if it’s a smaller risk than they’re currently taking. Tacit alliances like this happen more often in the crony system than you might think.

You have to be aware of the potential for trouble when you write on those topics. You can’t be a legal expert on what statements are allowed or not, but you can be aware that your work could face delays and rewrites.

Thanks to Tom Schwing for the forum post which called my attention to this issue.


What makes a professional writer? 1

Is a professional writer just someone who makes money writing? Then we might as well call anyone who gets paid for doing anything a pro. The word implies more than that. It means a commitment to producing the best results possible. It means not just being paid for work, but being paid for good work.

Professionals know that a career is an ongoing effort, not a leap to stardom. It’s a matter of constantly developing better skills, both at doing the work and at marketing it. Jeff Goins’ “7 Things Professional Writers Know That Amateurs Don’t” makes some excellent points on this topic. He explains that “success in any field is more about commitment to a process than it is about finding one magic trick that will make it all come together.”
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BlogMutt suspends adding new writers

BlogMutt logo BlogMutt has reported in its email to writers that it has suspended the adding of new writers for the first time in its history. The message says: “We think that our writer community is stronger than ever, and we want to make sure that there are plenty of jobs available for our best writers to let their talents shine.” In other words, it doesn’t want to spread the available work too thin. If you try to apply, the website tells you:

We are not currently accepting new writer applications. Please enter your information and we’ll contact you when our application process is reopened (approx. 3-5 months). Thanks for your interest in becoming a BlogMutt writer!

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Yesterday’s Songs Transformed: Format fixes

I’ve uploaded an update to Yesterday’s Songs Transformed to fix some formatting issues. If you’ve already bought the book, you can downloaded the new version for free. The Epub version looks much better now, with properly single-spaced verses.

If you haven’t bought it yet, what are you waiting for? Don’t forget the coupon code QV69U, which gets you a 30% discount through August 20.


Yesterday’s Songs Transformed — It’s Here!

Finally! Yesterday’s Songs Transformed is available on Smashwords!

Cover for "Yesterday's Songs Transformed."Did you know that “Charlie on the M.T.A.” started out as a song about a ship that never returned? That the “Streets of Laredo” follow a path from St. James’ Hospital in London? That “Yankee Doodle” originally was a song mocking the colonists?

This book follows the ways songs have changed and evolved over the years. It starts from the Middle Ages and conducts a tour that leads to Mad magazine, the Smothers Brothers, and Weird Al. It looks at where protest songs came from and how they changed with the times.

YST makes no pretense of being a scholarly book. It’s simply a look, with lots of quotations, at changing song lyrics and what lies behind them. You may learn a few bits of history you hadn’t known, and hopefully you’ll enjoy the ride.

The list price on Smashwords is $4.99, but I’m thanking readers of this blog by offering it at just $3.49 with the coupon code QV69U till August 20.
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Excuses for dishonest writing

Some people see nothing wrong with writing dishonest articles. A discussion in an online forum recently reminded me of this.

Let me start by clarifying what I mean by dishonest writing. If you’re writing on someone else’s behalf, you can argue for a position which you don’t personally agree with. It’s legitimate if there’s some case for the position and you use accurate facts and valid arguments. You’re helping the customer to present a position in a reasoned way, and there’s nothing wrong with that even if it’s not your position.

It becomes dishonest when your argumentation is dishonest. If you cite sources which you know are unreliable, use arguments which don’t hold up, and present “facts” with no source, you’re serving up counterfeit goods. If the customer is unaware you’re spewing nonsense, you’re cheating the customer. If they do know they’re asking you to deceive, you’re collaborating in cheating the reader. In some cases, it could count as fraud under the law.
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