How honest should you be?

Joe Grimm runs a neato site where people e-mail him and he posts cool journalistic stuff. He decided to link to an article from the Boston Globe about honesty.

It reminded me of something that happened to me earlier this week. I sent a column to an editor and about half of it had appeared before in another publication. I had changed the majority of it to be more timely but I felt I should tell the editor it had appeared before to prevent any kind of repercussions.

Believe me, it's always the time you're not upfront about something that it all comes out. I would much rather disclose that try to explain away why you didn't. So I told the editor thinking it might be the end of the sale.

It turns out he loved the piece and it was OK with him if it was partially published. In fact, he said he had no problems with reprints! So, there you go -- my first time at full disclosure and it didn't hurt at all.

Dare to be honest, kittycats!