Editor&Publisher: Editors Who Are Keeping Coulter's Column Explain Why

Editors Who Are Keeping Coulter's Column Explain Why
By Dave Astor
Published: March 09, 2007

NEW YORK At least seven of Ann Coulter's approximately 100 clients dropped her column this week, meaning more than 90 are keeping the feature -- at least for now.

E&P called some newspapers to find out why they've opted to continue publishing her in the wake of Coulter's March 2 "faggot" reference about former Sen. John Edwards (and her previous incendiary comments).

"She didn't use that language in her column," said Michael P. Clark, editorial page editor of The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. If she had used the F-word slur in her Universal Press Syndicate feature, he added, "we would have edited it out."

Clark declined further comment, except to conclude: "We plan to keep her column."

The Casper Star-Tribune also plans to continue publishing Coulter. "I don't like Ann Coulter, but many of my readers do," said Clark Walworth, editor of the Wyoming daily. "And I resent being lectured to by people who don't even subscribe to my paper."

Walworth was referring to the liberal MediaMatters.org site posting the names of Coulter's clients and suggesting that people contact those papers. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a gay-rights group, has also urged people to contact some of the conservative Coulter's clients....

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003556575

And I support the papers that decide to keep her on. THAT IS the whole idea about freedom of speech, and frankly, anyone here who wants to shut her up should be ashamed.

Yes, she is skanky. Yes, she is disgusting. Yes, she is vile. Yes, she has the sexual ethics and bathing habits seen more in a pigsty than in human society. But, as a liberal, I will defend her right to say what she thinks, in public and in print.

There is another element to keeping her around. She has lost so much respect from the right and moderates, that her presence is a painful reminder to folks of how bad the current crew of cabalists are. Much like that racist governor of Alabama, Wallace, who did so much good for the end of segregation, her presence ends up helping our cause.

I might agree with you. But this goes beyond the freedom of speech. She is someone that should be censored for such suggestions if not completely put out of business. Not because she doesn't like people like us, but because she spreads dangerous poisonous venom.

Also, if she was suggesting the killing of people in the conservative party, do you think she would still have a media voice to use to do so. Just look at what happened to the "Dixie Chicks" just for saying they were ashamed of bush being from Texas.

...to contact those that employ her to let them know our thoughts. She can blab all she wants. I'm certainly not advocating censorship. But those that pay her for this stuff should know that there could be a downside for them. Simple as that. And I'm certainly not ashamed to say it either.

But she does not have a right to have her views published. None of us has that right. So I don't support the papers who choose to keep her.

For the record, I help edit a newspaper that does not carry her column.

She's more than amply discredited without prurient speculation about her genitalia that only serves to make real criticisms of her look equally personal and petty.

That kind of "free speech" does not belong in the marketplace. It does not need corporate sponsorship. Racists bigoted remarks should never be condoned by any institution, ever.

What would be anti-free speech would be demands for a law making it illegal to use the word faggot, a law outlawing hate speech. My right to free speech includes demanding that your newspaper drop the hate mongering fascist coutler's column.

I agree completely.

But the longer she's around, the better off us Liberals are. She makes rethugs look like the pieces of shit they are.

Can you provide proof that Ann Coutler's success is also success for liberals?

Not that I think your an apologist for people that really would love to take 'liberals' free speech away to the point of not even bothering to print their views anymore or have them on their news networks, I am just curious as to how this 'demonstration' effect works?

I'll be honest but I have never seen any proof of the 'give them enough rope' thesis so loved by communists and liberals actually working. It always struck me as an excuse for political inactivity and a come on to sell media products.

It is rather strange that Ann gets the protection from people who post on a forum where much of what she writes would have been deleted by the moderators and NOT for political content but for the same reasons her shit, IF IT WASN'T LINKED TO AN MSM STORY would be deleted on most forums regardless of content.

You can't openly talk about killing people on forums. You can't openly call be traitors on forums. You can't openly call people ad homs like 'faggot' -- but in widely distributed newspaper column, public speeches, etc etc, no problem -- the rules for free speech are even LESS rigourous than what 'mods' approve in the media (which generally tend to think the internet is evil)

How can you live with yourself posting at a place on the internet that is a virtual Stalinist charnelhouse of non-freedom compared to the open debate of allowed by Universal Press Syndicate?

I agree 100%.

Her column takes the space that would otherwise be used for someone else's free speech.

just for homophobes?

to the contrary.

should we not protect all opinions, even those offensive to us?

As to whether we should protect homophobic speech, it's already protected by the First Amendment. To say that most of us want to attack her right to speak homophobically is false. Actually, IMO, people have a responsibility to exercise their own right to free speech by denouncing her hate speech, in turn. That may extend to boycotting newspapers that carry her column, etc.

I guess I object to your language that those of us who denounce her should be "ashamed" - I am anything but, and I'll preach it from the rooftops that her speech is disgusting and repulsive. (And not just what she said about Edwards, either - just about everything that comes from her mouth.)

Peace. :hi:

It never ceases to amaze me how many people do not ...

No one here or anywhere else appears to be advocating that Ann Coulter be prohibited by the government from speaking, or punished by the government if she speaks.

THAT is what freedom of speech means: that no one may be prohibited from / punished for speaking.

Like it says in your constitution, expressing this idea:

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ...

No one has a right to have his/her opinions published in a newspaper.

Newspapers are profit-making corporations, and they publish what they choose, subject to no constraints (other than what limits there are on speech, like false advertising) but the criteria they themselves choose to impose. Their constraints obviously include space limitations, appeal to readers (who buy the newspapers based to some extent on what is in them) and appeal to advertisers (who buy advertising space based to some extent on what is in them), and generally include the personal preferences of the publisher.


You ask: should we not protect all opinions, even those offensive to us?

Maybe, maybe not; opinions vary about whether there is a line, and where it should be drawn -- but that question has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. It would arise if Coulter were being prosecuted or sentenced for something she said; it does not arise in relation to business decisions made by newspaper publishers or purchasing decisions made by newspaper consumers.

No one is obliged to publish Coulter's column, and no one is obliged to buy newspapers that publish it. People who want to read her column or want her to make money are at liberty to protest / stop buying newspapers that cancel it, and people who are made nauseous by her column or think she should rot in hell are at liberty to protest / stop buying newspapers that publish it.

How could it be any other way?

:P

editorials, basically a lecture, at the library, or at the bottom of a birdcage, or from my blanket at the park. Who wants yesterday's papers?

to sully our souls with racists and bigots and hate-filled demons posing as columnists. I haven't gotten my local paper for 25 years because they print letters to the editor that are beyond belief.

:eyes:

whining and hate mail a typical newspaper gets. From all sides. On all subjects. I at least understand that sentiment. If he's going to respond to criticism, he'll take his reader's complaints into account first.

Big of him, isn't it. He runs Coulter's column. If he doesn't like the heat, he should throw her out of the kitchen.

"we would have edited it out." Does that mean they regularly do edit out her hate? So, the paper only allows her to spew vile words of hate and discontent on some issues some of the time?

That rag needs some competition, unfortunately the paper's major advertisers are probably hate mongers themselves, or their advertisers' clients are or they've already been threatened by the Klan (or whatever goes for that group in their town).

They didn't censor the hate speeches of the Tutsies' genociders before they ran out to mass-murder them.

Couldn't happen here, though. Although I'm not so sure... Imagine if all 30% "still" wingnuts suddenly went totally crazy (they're only just "crazy" now, not totally, even if they're quite close to the edge...). :crazy: