So this is where Fairfax draws the line on its blogs. Not with blurring the line between sponsorship and commissioning. Not with spoofs suggesting that the entire population of Israel be moved to Tasmania. Not with how-to descriptions of drug use. No, the line in the sand is spoofs on Kevin Rudd getting excited in a strip joint.

That one man ethical dilemma, Jack Marx, was sacked by e-mail yesterday after posting this entry on his Daily Truth blog. News Limited gleefully posted it after Fairfax pulled it – warning that readers may find it offensive.

I doubt if Crikey’s readers will be shocked. It is mildly amusing in places, but if the thought of an er-ction in the Leader of the Opposition’s trousers offends you, then don’t read to the end.

Marx has gone from feather duster to rooster in the last few months. Just last year he brought glory on Fairfax as winner of last year’s Walkley award for feature writing for his landmark piece on Russell Crowe – which set history by being run first on his blog, and then later over several days in print.

But yesterday, according to Marx, Fairfax Digital editor-in-chief Mike Van Niekerk’s personal assistant sent him an e-mail telling him he was sacked, without giving reasons.

In a phone conversation later that day, Marx says van Niekerk told him that he had been “worried” about his blog ever since the Jews-to-Israel entry back in mid 2006.

“In that case he must have been very uncomfortable sitting next to me at the Walkleys,” says Marx.

He is pretty fed up, particularly since van Niekerk is quoted today accusing Marx of a “line of indiscretions”. It was always understood, says Marx, that the brief was to be edgy.

“If he had concerns, why the f-ck didn’t he tell me?” Asks Marx. He claims there were no warnings that he should pull his head in before the sacking. could not be contacted for comment.

According to van Niekerk, the issue was not so much content as process, with Marx refusing to submit to the normal editing process.

”Jack has had plenty of advice on this. He has been asked to submit his content for editing and he insists on posting it directly. It’s not as if this item was as bad as people are making out. Eventually, as brilliant a writer as he is he’ll put something up there that really will be something no-one will want to see. But it’s bad enough talking about Rudd having er-ctions and m-sturbating.

”We wanted him to be edgy but we wanted him to follow a normal editing process. If Jack wants to be a publisher he’s welcome to go out and do it.

”He’s been given a month’s notice by the way, and I did phone him.”

Meanwhile for some months Marx says he has been paid for only three days a week. In order to live up to the name The Daily Truth he had to work two days for free – something he did not always do, as any reader will have seen.

“It was a pretty bitter pill to read all about how lazy I was being in the readers’ comments,” he says, while admitting that the quality of his postings were not what they had been.

“Anyone can see that my enthusiasm had waned.”

He now plans to take a holiday, then consider writing a book.

So there we have it. Jack Marx, beautiful writer at his best, but just too damn edgy for the mainstream. This affair can now be added to the Tim Dunlop post-pulling affair at News.com.au as another episode in the mainstream media’s attempt to determine where lines should be drawn in the blogosphere.

Clearly, there is going to be a big difference between blogs found in the wild, and those that have been captured by the mainstream. When the mainstream’s prestige is threatened, the bloggers get censored.

That means, of course, that independent blogs will continue to exist and prosper. This will be a mixed blessing, but a blessing nonetheless.