December 7, 2002
THANKS, HOWELL:
Not Fit to Print? (John Feinstein, December 7, 2002, Washington Post)Shortly after the Times editorial ran, Anderson wrote a column in which he said Woods was under no obligation to take any position on Augusta's membership policies; that he was a golfer who should simply be allowed to play golf. He took issue with the Times editorial in the column, no doubt in the reasoned, calm tone that has marked his work through the years. In an era when many sports columnists believe the best way to get noticed is to scream their opinions, Anderson never raises his voice. Which is one of the reasons he is universally respected and one of the reasons he is one of only three sports columnists ever awarded the Pulitzer.The Times killed the column. [...]
The editorial board at the Times is certainly entitled to its opinion -- as wrong as it may be. But so is Anderson. To claim, as Boyd does, that the killing of the columns was the result of "editing" is inexcusable and insulting, not to mention condescending.
The Times has attacked Augusta National editorially for discriminating against women. It says that all discrimination is wrong. Certainly a reasonable argument. In the journalistic club, does it apply to sportswriters, too?
While it has been great fun to watch the Times get its collective head handed to it over this kind of heavy-handed censorship of dissenting views, there's a far more important issue that implicates the Times Editorial page that's going unnoticed. After initially responding to the April coup attempt against Venezuela's vile Hugo Chavez with a shockingly salutary democratic impulse, the Times, realizing it was out of step with proper Leftist orthodoxy, engaged in an unseemly round of self-flagellation, denouncing itself for speaking honestly and turning loose their house attack dog, Paul Krugman, to gnaw on George W. Bush's heel, for supporting the coup.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 7, 2002 8:44 AM
Orrin,
Great job as usual. The Times can't get around its own leftist beliefs to see the truth about Chavez. They are more concerned about perceived wrongs rather than real ones.
marc
I appreciate Feinstein's diatribe -- just as I've appreciated all
the shots against the Times in this whole goofy affair -- but he makes an off-kilter judgment there at the end of your excerpted piece.
Spiking an employees's column, whether for aesthetic or ideological reasons, is "discriminating" only in the old dictionary sense of the word. It is certainly not "discrimination" in the common modern sense -- i.e., the prejudiced treatment of people based on personal characteristics, which is the kind of discrimination the NYT thinks it has found at Augusta.
I find the Times' crusade to be laughable, but this particular parallel is faulty logic ... or faulty rhetoric, at any rate.
By that standard though it would be impossible to "discriminate" against folks for their religion or their sexual preferences since neither is an innate characteristic. I tend to agree with that, but it's not the state of our discrimination law or cultural understanding of the issue.
Posted by: oj at December 7, 2002 10:27 AMOK, then I'll append my argument to say that the Times' spiking of a column is not the same as discriminating against someone on the basis of religion or sexual preferences.
Had the Times spiked the column because the writer was Catholic, or because he was male, then you've got a parallel. Otherwise, nope.
At heart, my point is really just one about semantics.
Somewhere in here there's a joke about discrimination and anti-semanticism, but I can't figure it out right now.
Posted by: oj at December 7, 2002 12:29 PM