Quote of the day

"...the greatest cause of verbicide [extinction of words] is the fact that most people are obviously far more anxious to express their approval and disapproval of things than to describe them. Hence the tendency of words is to become less descriptive and more evaluative."

-C.S. Lewis

Self-censorship at NYT?

In a story run about the crazy millitant lesbian shooter of Andy Warhol, there was a comment posted by a "JK." The shooter had written a play reportedly so sexually explicit that Andy Warhol thought it was part of a plot to entrap him, hatched by the NYPD.

What I find interesting is the blatant calling out of the journalistic standards of propriety of the NYT, editing out "bad words," but displaying murdered people on the front page. I also find the reply from the editorial desk telling, as it omits any comment on the censorship note and focuses on her skepticism of the veracity of the witness in the story.

From NYT

____

a) This story is extremely hard to believe and deserves a lot more skepticism.

b) The title of a play is not “unprintable.” What the Times means is that it wants not to print it, at the same time it does want to print, say, bloody bodies on the streets of Iran. Even if the Times has some rationale for protecting us from individual words–protection I neither need nor asked for–then it should be honest about its self-censorship rather than hiding behind a faux universal truth.

— jk

Jk,

Thank you for your comment. Four decades, and a conviction, after the day in question, The Times does not present Ms.Fieden’s account as definitive. On the contrary, we consider this just one angle of the story, made relevant by the discovery of the manuscript and the National Arts Club event tonight.

— Nicole Collins, assistant metropolitan editor

Is this legal?

I saw this posted on a hiring website:

"Effective Sept 1, 2007, Cleveland Clinic will no longer hire tobacco users."

Is this enforceable? Legal? Ethical?

Quote of the day

"To call this a crime is too simplistic. There is Christian scripture that would support this."

-Dave Leach comments on the point-blank murder of abortion specialist George Tiller in the foyer of his Lutheran church.  Leach is the organizer of the anti-abortion newsletter "Prayer and action news". From NYT.