On Dec. 31, I posted about the request by Cincinnati Post editor Mike Philipps that none of his staff bring booze to work for the paper's last edition.

Slate's Jack Shafer makes the following argument in his Jan. 3 column: (thanks, Kevin S.!)

It's easy to reduce all of what is wrong with American journalism to the near industrywide ban on booze in the newsroom. So I will.

Every profession needs what academics call an "occupational mythology" to sustain it, a set of personal and social dramas, arrangements, and devices, as sociologist Everett Hughes put it, "by which men make their work tolerable, or even make it glorious to themselves and others." As hard drugs are to the hard-rocker and tattoos are to the NBA player, so booze is to the journalist—even if he doesn't drink.

The journalist likes to think of himself as living close to the edge, whether he's covering real estate or Iraq. He (and she) shouts and curses and cracks wise at most every opportunity, considers divorce an occupational hazard, and loves telling ripping yarns about his greatest stories. If he likes sex, he has too much of it. Ditto for food. If he drinks, he considers booze his muse. If he smokes, he smokes to excess, and if he attempts to quit, he uses Nicorette and the patch.

As Meryl Aldridge notes in her 1998 article titled "The Tentative Hell-Raisers" (from which I cherry-picked the Everett Hughes quotation above), journalists identify with larger-than-life personalities, because that's how they see themselves. Deny the journalist his self-image as a rule-bending individualist and you might as well replace him with a typist. Wherever you encounter bland writing and gutless reporting, thank the Mike Philippses of the industry.

But then Shafer tosses this in:

Wise editors know when and how to encourage newsroom insubordination, as opposed to squelching it, because they appreciate Bob Woodward's aphorism, "All good work is done in defiance of management." By giving the newsroom the opportunity to stand up to him, the wise editor instructs his reporters in the advanced techniques of standing up to CEOs and politicians. The wise editor understands that quality journalism requires a bad attitude, foul words, a brawl, and sometimes a drink afterward.

So if any Cincinnati Post staffers were pointlessly slapped on the wrists for imbibing on their paper's last day, the next round's on me.