Patterico's Pontifications

7/25/2008

L.A. Times Censors Bloggers on Edwards

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 6:18 pm



L.A. Times bloggers have been told not to blog about the National Enquirer story on John Edwards and Rielle Hunter. Here’s the e-mail, quoted from Mickey Kaus’s blog:

From: “Pierce, Tony”

Date: July 24, 2008 10:54:41 AM PDT

To: [XXX]

Subject: john edwards

Hey bloggers,

There has been a little buzz surrounding John Edwards and his alleged affair. Because the only source has been the National Enquirer we have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations. So I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified.

If you have any questions or are ever in need of story ideas that would best fit your blog, please don’t hesitate to ask

Keep rockin,

Tony

This is hardly a shock. Regular readers will recall how the Top of the Ticket blog initially tried to blog the story when it first emerged months ago, and then whisked away the post — which then reappeared after I wrote about it, and was then rewritten several times. Andrew Malcolm had initially commented that it would be “censorship” not to blog about it. Then an editor censored the post.

I suspect Malcolm would like to blog this again. I’ll e-mail him to ask, but I couldn’t really blame him if he didn’t want to respond on the record.

P.S. Key aspects of the story have been confirmed by Fox News. Will that change the directive?

UPDATE: Malcolm has responded. Read his response here.

7 Responses to “L.A. Times Censors Bloggers on Edwards”

  1. KJL and Ponnuru have adjudicated at The Corner: the story is “trash.” Anybody seen any pix yet?

    gp (ea9df7)

  2. “Keep rockin?” What a dork.

    Jack Klompus (b796b4)

  3. LA Observed has Executive Editor Meredith Artley’s response/explanation to Kaus’s post,

    “In the spirit of transparency I want to give some background on this, and to note how in hindsight we might have done things differently to avoid the discontent that led to yet another public poke in the eye.”

    “Our message to you (I asked Tony to drop you guys the note) should have been more nuanced. I should have first not encouraged posting on this topic, but if any of you feel that you have a post you really to write, to please discuss it with Tony and myself first since we must always tread carefully on unverified stories. And I should have explained the thinking behind that decision. The idea was not to muzzle any of you and then walk away – that is never a recipe for success.

    It reminds me of when Obama tries to take a stand on an issue or makes a declarative statement and ends up needing to hold a news conference to explain what he really meant to say.

    http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/07/times_bloggers_told_not_t.php#more

    Dana (f3e2a8)

  4. KJL and Ponnuru have adjudicated at The Corner: the story is “trash.”

    Full quote: “I’m inclined to think that the National Enquirer story is that [i.e., tabloid trash] even if it’s true.”

    Keep rockin’!

    Jim Treacher (592cb4)

  5. “We have decided not to cover the rumors or salacious speculations…”?

    If this is the LAT’s new policy, can we be expecting a retraction of the paper’s Schwarzenegger groping story, and an apology to the governor?

    The Hound (18f246)

  6. The Hound, nope. It is another LAT rule that applies only to Democrats.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  7. The LA Times… What a liberal rag. What utter nonsense. Shows you how entrenched the liberal mindset is in the media.

    John Edtards (d33f7b)


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