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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (24028)	11/7/2007 5:00:35 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

What a free press means By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen (bio) politicalmavens.com Tell a Friend Printer Friendly Font [+] Font [–] What do you call a publication from which an editor can be fired for expressing an editorial opinion? Iranian? Saudi, Soviet? Surely not American. If such a thing were to happen in the United States, even in a small-town newspaper, it could give the impression that speech and the press aren’t actually free here. And that would be a really bad thing. It would be especially chilling were the editor to be let go over a criticism made of a politician or political candidate, thereby nullifying entirely the whole reason for a free press — to shine a light in the dark corners of the country’s political house to help keep the powerful honest. But that seems to be precisely what occurred in the local Benicia, California paper. It appears that rather than the Benicia Herald, they may as well be running the Pyongyang Post or the Baghdad Bugle. Les Mahler, who has run the Benicia Herald for about 10 months, reportedly said he was suspended after an e-mail came to light detailing a meeting he had with the Herald’s advertising manager, a City Council candidate and a candidate for mayor. Evidently Mahler’s troubles started earlier when he quoted in his column an anonymous letter, critical of one of the candidate’s campaign ads, saying he’d failed to address the issues. The candidate called the meeting because he felt the newspaper was “poking fun” at him, according to the report. The Herald evidently printed a retraction of Mahler’s column, saying the editor had violated policy by publishing an unsigned letter and attacking a candidate’s position, but that was apparently insufficient. In Mahler’s case the point is likely moot, since he was scheduled to take disability leave this month for cancer treatment. But the incident calls attention to a conundrum facing the entire country. Where does free speech end and personal choice begin? A California Newspaper Publishers Association legal expert was quoted in the report saying that publishers have the right to control their newspaper’s content. “Employees don’t have absolute First Amendment rights in any workplace,” the expert said. But it seems to me that unless a remark is libelous, slanderous or incites violence against an individual or group, we are on dangerous ground suspending an editor for expressing an opinion in an opinion piece. In the report Mahler blames the paper’s fear of losing advertising revenue, and if that’s the factor deciding what is or isn’t printed in the newspaper, we may just as well hang up the pretense of a free press. A positive note is an effort by one Benicia resident to organize a boycott of the paper in protest of Mahler’s suspension. I hope this person supports the candidates in question or disagrees with Mahler’s editorial, because the point is freedom of speech and freedom of the press, even when one personally disagrees. There needs to be very few exceptions to this rule, all of them having to do with public safety, if the concept, and therefore the nature of the country, is to survive. As Voltaire said, “I may disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”