Dropping Ann Coulter's column. "You'd have thought we came out against Christmas or SEC football."

Editor Who Dropped Coulter Column Describes Strong Backlash

By E&P Staff
Published: March 12, 2007 11:00 AM ET

NEW YORK Last week, at least seven daily newspapers around the country announced that they had decide to drop Ann Coulter's column in the wake of her latest offensive comment, a reference to former Sen. John Edwards in which she used the term "faggot." An eighth paper has now cut the column: The Herald and Review in Decatur, Ill.

Another paper, The State Journal Register in Springfield, Ill., is weighing that move and is asking readers to weigh in -- and has been swamped with pro and con responses.

Coulter's syndicate, Universal, has said it has no plans to drop her.

One of the first to announce its move was the Mountain Press in Sevierville, Tenn. In a column today, its editor, Stan Voit, explains, "I've been a newspaperman for most of the last 35 years. But I admit I have never encountered anything like the reaction to this paper dropping Ann Coulter's column. You'd have thought we came out against Christmas or SEC football."

More -

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003556843

Well it's nice to see that newspapers are continuing to drop her

who argued so forcefully against my stance on editorial independence, are you now willing to retract your statements and apologize, or are you actually going to suggest that this little paper should cave to an avalanche of popular pressure and reinstate Coulter's column for fear of the economic consequences?

They never should have ran that joker's columns in the first place.

:shrug:

CHIEF PILOT: There goes another one.

CAPTAIN: Hold your fire. There are no life forms. It must have been
short-circuited.

"Some have tried to make this a First Amendment, free-speech issue. It's not. We publish five national columnists a week, which means dozens more, from Jesse Jackson to Cal Thomas, are not printed on this page. We are not censoring the others or violating their First Amendment rights. We simple choose not to pay to run them. By the way we paid $5 a week for Ann Coulter's column - probably what she makes a second when she gives a speech. She has her own Web site. If you want to read her column, you'll be able to."

Read the damn article before you make an ass out of yourself again.

After you read the article read the 1st Amendment.

:nopity:

a normal person can understand? And calling everyone idiots isn't a good way to make friends and influence people. Just saying.

Glad to see there's some rational thought in Decatur. :-)

Nice place and, unusual for it's size, it has two daily's. I only ask because I can say, without exaggeration, that I have hundreds of relatives living there.

begins with a "P"

And yes, if the paper keeps her column because they're afraid of losing money, then, "market forces" have worked. Let's check back with them in a couple of months, shall we, and see if the "market forces" in play were indicative of true impact on their bottom line or if it was just very effective "astro turfing" by one or both "sides".

While you're defending "editorial independence," I'd like to direct you to reading some history about William Randolph Hearst. It might be an eye opener to you. I'll also direct you to an article From Ingsoc And Newspeak To Amcap, Amerigood, And Marketspeak which discusses the effectiveness of "marketing psychology" and "thought control".

Beyond that - since you make presumptions about people's intent then call them names based on those presumptions, I'll bid you good day.

the main player in the demonization and criminalization of Marijuana. Among other things. A real asshole, William Randolph. :grr:

Hmm, now what U.S. rag is it, that I remember playing the same cheerleading role "selling" us into illegally invading Iraq?

Gee, ain't yellow journalism grand? And to think, we might be able to fight back using "market forces". How fun is that.

blew it up from the inside. The Maine, the Gulf Of Tonkin, 9-11, what's next?

Though I don't put it past them to turn a horrific event into justification for another "war", I hope I am so very, very wrong that it might happen. Though we do appear to keep things stirred up nicely and tensely, don't we?

What a government we have. What an unfreakingbelievable cynical and inhuman corporate structure we have.

No one argued against your stance on editorial independence. We said we have a right to tell a newspaper we won't buy them anymore unless they drop Coulter. I have a right to tell a newspaper I won't buy them any more if they carry lentil recipes. THAT is MY right. No one advocated locking the doors of the newspapers or shutting them down. We said we have a right to put financial pressure on them by NOT buying them. Are you saying we are obligated to buy their paper?

...and don't call me an idiot. I've never talked to you that way.
Lee

I figured that this story would make you all abashed and that you'd all be falling over each other to say... yes, cgrindley, we see the error of our ways... undue economic pressure on newspapers is a bad thing... editorial independence should be safeguarded at all costs....

but it didn't happen. I guess I'm the idiot here.

...and I wouldn't. So you're saying I am obligated to buy the paper? I think not. I even understand where you're coming from. A free press is an important right but so is our right to pressure them if we think they are wrong. What if they wanted to have a weekly Ku Klux Klan Klatch? <g> Please...of course we have a right to apply economic pressure. I don't have to buy anything or encourage anything I think is horrid, repressive, homophobic, racist, etc.
Lee

no one's ever going to see my POV on this.

It doesn't even make you wrong, though I think you are on this. It just means we disagree. You are NOT an idiot.

Also, an OT question. Your ID looks very familiar to me. Are you on any Yahoo entertainment groups?
Lee

Here there and elsewhere... IMDB stuff like that.

Calling the rest of DUers "idiots" suggests that the accuser might be a visitor from another environment, but I would not go so far as to accuse anyone of that. No, really, I wouldn't.

But to answer your question, cgrindley, yes, I would allow the newspaper to reinstate coulter if they felt they were going to lose significant readership, or advertisers. And I'm not a particularly devout capitalist.

I would also encourage my anti-coulter friends to write letters of their own to the editor and support the decision to drop coulter.


Tansy Gold, who is most definitely not an idiot and doesn't think most DUers are but will not offer an opinion on the intellectual capacity of . . . . aliens

I guess you can be congratulated on that.

I'm not changing my mind on this one, and this new article is proof positive that I just seriously kicked your ass intellectually speaking.

they look about as smart as you congratulate yourself on being

Listen: I argued that taking a stance against editorial independence--by attempting to spearhead consumer boycotts and the like in order to pressure newspaper ownership to reign in editors--would bite progressive ass way more often than it would bite rightwing nutjob ass. As it was, I was shouted down by a chorus of howling capitalists, who all claimed that a) editorial independence had been killed by capitalism, and b) that using capitalism in this context was cool.

Of course, I was right. This story shows that the right wing will always mobilize more nutjobs to complain than progressives will.

I'd love to see how many of these 7 newspapers quietly return Coulter to the op ed pages.

Playing by their rules on this one will only result in us losing every single time.

who asked YOU?

are you out of your mind?

or are you just hyperventilating from doing a self-congratulatory reacharound?

way to win friends and influence people

last time I looked this was a public message board. but, then, perhaps you exist in your own delusionary universe, in which all else is just a figment of your megalomaniacal imagination

yeah, you sure kick intellectual ass, bud. keep patting yourself on your own back, while calling others idiots

people really appreciate that sort of thing

I was replying to Tansy Gold and you blundered in. We were reprising a lively discussion we had regarding another post on the Coulter issue. If you'd like, I can bring you up to speed on the issues.

that said, I'm pretty sure anybody can just 'blunder in' upon anyone else's discussion

you do realize that's the way it works around here, don't you?

Are you kidding me?

Let's see, you didn't persuade me to change my position, so you can hardly say you "won" on that point.

You haven't convinced anyone else on this board that they're wrong, so you haven't scored any points there, either.

And you haven't even talked anyone else on this board into criticizing my point of view.

So if there's been any intellectual ass kicking, buster, it sure hasn't been you doing it to me.

You are still the lone voice spewing "editorial independence" like it's got the same intellectual validity of, say, "compassionate conservatism."

Oh, wait, it does.


Tansy Gold, who knows an intellectual ass kicking when she sees one and this ain't one.

Have at it.

State Journal Register
http://www.sj-r.com/about/feedback.asp

FUCK the readers.

Never ask them to weigh in on ANYTHING. Only the lunatics respond.
Don't be terrorized by the "readers."

is tanking because the owners are taking all the money from them to use to prop up the failing Chicago Tribune...so they keep cutting staff at LA Times - and cutting investigative reporting to give that $$$ to the Chicago Trib...which happens to be a Right wing rag...I even subscribe to the Trib to stop the hemorrhaging from LA Times....

having worked in the industry, i can say that nine times out of ten the biggest amount of reader mail/e-mail/calls comes from people upset about the paper using the wrong clue in the crossword, or dropping "Blondie" from the comics page.....and believe me when i tell you that those are the SANE people...you don't want to know what the insane write to us about...

:shrug:

pro-coulter mail as hate-filled and vile. Kinda like ol' annie herself.

The other point, too, is that the editor justified his decision with more than just reader comments/threats. I have a feeling that if and when there is any kind of reconsideration of that decision, he will weigh his own internal reasoning with the attitude and tone of those who supported or criticized the move.

Which is just another reason why I am suspicious of those who not only discourage us from voicing our opinions but do so in a way that characterizes our protests as "lynch mob"-like. It's never been my experience that liberals and progressives behave like that, but rather it's the rightwingers, with their nasty, threatening letters, shaking fists, and purple-with-rage faces, who display the mindset of a mob. (Tansy is excepting the time she got in the face of the sanctimonious young repuke who offered up a dozen shit-assed absurd reasons for why he wasn't enlisting in the military to fight his glorious leader's war. :evilgrin:) So when people DO accuse us of acting mob-like, I take the accusation with a large grain of salt and chalk it up to projection of the accuser's own attitude.

Tansy Gold

who don't even live in the town or the area was brought to you by the same folks who were screaming and pounding on the doors in Florida during the 2000 recount. If nothing else, they are organized.

:)

on her head at birth. Perhaps that explains the Adam's Apple.

I'm all for the 1st Ammendment - she was proably our greatest ally.

Exactly. The whiners are people glued to their computers, reading blogs, with nothing better to do than...er...well...ummm....not that any of us are like that...it just...
:hide:

Glad to see some of these papers are fixing them. Now if only she could be deported for being such an uncouth american...

And, yes, the number of Democrats in that county could fit in a phone booth - so I'm sure they're catching all kinds of hell.

I hope they stick with it, though.

Sent this off to the Springfield paper, don't know what good it will do, but for my children, their dad and the ever struggling liberal free-thinkers in IL, I send this via e-mail:

Hi, I lived in your city for 7 years, my relatives and children live in Springfield and my parents worked for the state for about fourty years between the two of them (and subscribed to your daily paper as well). I sincerely ask that you discontinue Ann Coulter's column. Why? To start, her 'potty mouth' and voiced desire to kill people who don't subscribe to her views. My Mother (rest her soul) was in many ways an Eisenhower conservative. She voted Republican often, especially if she thought that the candidate would be well-educated and excercise fiscal responsibility. At the end of her life she became very disillusioned by the shrill name-calling and the 'school-yard taunts' of the current crop of so-called republican conservatives. To her, being conservative meant being the adult in all exchanges, having strong availible facts and research, and keeping a certain decorum at all times. She would turn in her grave to hear the current immature and vulgar discourse of Ms. Ann and would no doubt speak out. I suppose this brings me up to the second point: I remember real conservative columnists like George Will and James Kirkpatrick. I did not always agree with them, but they had done their research, had facts and numbers and never sank as low as to castigate the families and widows of 9-11 or the supposed sexual preferences of elected officials. Unlike the 'schoolyard taunters' I respected them and their views. Why can't we return to that standard? I do not desire my children and family to live in a city where people are exposed to false and juvenile slanders masquerading as 'journalism'. I am proud that I took journalism classes in an Illinois high school and I can tell that based on her lack of research, objectivity, and decorum, Ann Coulter is no journalist. Let her decend to the pay-per-blog realm where people can say any darn thing they want. She no longer needs public and commercially sponsered publication. If you need a replcement, I'm sure there are better, and no, the shrill Michelle Malkin is not one of them, as a non-journalist (by any standard) she will have her 'macaca moment' as well. It is your choice, choose well....Thank you for your time and consideration in reading this, Sincerely, (my given name)

I felt keenly about this subject, but couldn't mail to a paper out of the blue. Hopefully it makes a difference. What I don't get is the people around here, saying omimously that the 'R's' might boycott back. They started this in the 80's, shaping the world thru boycotts. Let's play along,I bet we have more people! Yes they are well-organized, how do you think they pulled it off? But we have the numbers...Boycott Fox!, Boycott Walmart! Buy Local! Hemp(aka:biodiesel and biomethane)for Victory! :)

Yes, the fearful symmetry of "Oh, oh, we can't defend ourselves or might fight back" is terrible to behold.

We all should know that the rightwing is NEVER afraid to strike back, and if we don't -- that is, if we don't know it by now AND if we don't strike back on our own issues -- then we have effectively surrendered to them. And it seems to me, though of course I could be wrong, that anyone who urges us NOT to fight back could in fact be one of "them." I mean, it is possible, isn't it?

Tansy Gold, once an Illini but of the Chicagoland variety

Bwhahahahahaha!

:rofl:

That's brilliant.

I understand; this is my cathedral:



(Yes, I know we're not in the SEC... :eyes: )