Center for Citizen Media Rotating Header Image

Profiles in Newspaper Spinelessness

The editorial page editor of the Shreveport Times frets about the rancid writings of Ann Coulter, which appear on his page. Wondering, Hamlet-style, if he should replace her with a rational conservative, he says:

So while her harangues finally may have grown tiresome, we would be reluctant to pull her column from our pages based on her attack on widows, believing that would be flirting with censorship.

No, it’s not. Censorship is something a government does, or forces to occur via a third party.

Pulling her column would be flirting with common sense and honor, qualities that appear mysterious to this particular editor.

2 Comments on “Profiles in Newspaper Spinelessness”

  1. #1 Emery Jeffreys
    on Jul 3rd, 2006 at 7:37 am

    It’s not censorship. It’s just an intelligent publishing decision.

    Remember, Ann Coulter is the same woman who says Max Clelaland is not a ware hero. Cleland jumped on a live grenade to keep fellow soldiers from being killed during the Vietnam War. He wasn’t at the front lines… but he was in a war zone.
    I think her thinking is that Cleland is a liberal… God know how she reaches some of her other opinions.

  2. #2 Dan Gillmor
    on Jul 3rd, 2006 at 10:54 am

    Actually, Cleland didn’t jump on it the way you suggest. He picked it up, not knowing it was live.

    He definitely didn’t deserve the sliming his opponents gave him, however. In every way that matters he’s many times braver than any of them.