I’d wager that there are two broad types of self-censorship. One is where the reporter or editor shields a fact or a story that they exclusively know– traditional gatekeeping.

But the bulk of his article is about the other type– adhering to guidelines of style or taste. The Times, in its obit of Earl Butz, wouldn’t print the exact words he said three decades ago which got him booted from Ford’s cabinet (the Times won’t print kitty or So Happy It’s Thursday– unless it’s Tom Friedman quoting the President on an open mic). But anybody who read the present day code words — “desires that Mr. Butz listed in obscene and scatological terms” — could do a quicky-wiki search and find out what they were missing.

I suppose that every so often there’s a reporter that bristles at the style guides, like J. Anthony Lukas, who coined “barnyard epithet” for the Times while covering the defendents at the Chicago 7 trial. I just can’t imagine that it’s as offensive to the free spread of information as classical gatekeeping. That’s where Hitchens loses all perspective.

The Danish Mohammed cartoons is a tough call as well– but again, this wasn’t something people couldn’t find elsewhere.

Now, he closes up with a discussion of the effect of the Alberta Human Rights Commission on the publishing of those cartoons. Hold on– that is a state censor. And this is where Glenn Greenwald’s reporting, which you linked to in January, cleans out Hitchens’s clock.

Hitchens is one of the most fascinating writers in the English language, and his linkability testifies to that. But he took a sleepwalk through this piece.

props out?