Censoring Censors

If you're the kind of person who enjoys Easterbrook- or Limbaugh-style brain ticklers about media ethics, offensive speech and censorship, here's another one for you: The New York newspaper El Diario is being criticized today by Los Angeles Times columnist Geraldine Baum, for committing the "newspaper no-no" of "kill[ing] a column" from a controversial author. A decision, Baum argues, that "made them appear to have caved to an interest group." The author? Fidel Castro.

Comments

[Anonymous]

A lot of foolishness going on here.

To start, towards the bottom of this article we get the disclosure that the Tribune Co., which owns the LATimes, also owns Hoy, the main competitor of El Diario. This makes this the criticism in this article seem a bit, directed.

The two Canuckleheads running El Diario, probably should have thought it out a little better when the main complaints about the Castro article were coming out of South FL instead of where they are actually selling most of their newspapers.

Borrero actually seems to be a better businessman than either of two running the paper, and if they were smart, they'd try to get him back, and not just as a columnist.

[chthus]

oops, sent early.

Final point is that this situation differs from the other two in the sense of the backlash over the censoring is actually going to be larger than the backlash to the original perceived faux pas. I personally thought ESPN was chickenshit for getting rid of Limbaugh (anyone see McNabb's numbers lately? Rush at least has this to get him through those dark lonely rehab times), but I also hadn't even bothered to tune in and watch him, so I didn't care much. TMQ, on the other hand was one of the few reason I even bothered to regularly go to espn.com anymore, and now I probably won't. Once again, ESPN looks chickenshit, but they would have looked two-faced had they not gotten rid of him. Now anyone who works there had better watch their ass, as guillotine is well-oiled.

[joe]

"The cell connection kept going in and out, but I'm pretty sure he said 'columnist'."