11 Comments Add your own

• 1. Jet  |  November 9th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

  you should publish some of the original complaints that caused your over reaction. people wanna know!

• 2. Jim Phelps  |  November 9th, 2009 at 6:05 pm

  Oh my goodness, it just doesn’t get any better than this:

  “And, this: Censorship, which a bunch of folks love tossing around, is when the government steps in and shuts down or interferes with the free flow of information. The last time I checked I was not a government entity, get no government funding and am not an elected or appointed official. So, when I decide what goes into — or out of — a newspaper or Web site, it’s not censorship. It’s editing and you might hate the heck out of my choices, but it’s not censorship.”

  http://blogs.e-rockford.com/editorsnote/

  However, when an “editor” chooses not to run a story, or in this case a comic strip, that should be aired in the public interest - which was the intent I believe of the strip to show how cultural norms were and were not at the same time changing among the generations- then I believe the term “censorship” applies.

  “Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.”

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

  This happens all the time, Linda:

  Corporate censorship is censorship by corporations, the sanctioning of speech by spokespersons, employees, and business associates by threat of monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship

  Here are a bunch of examples:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship#News_and_entertainment_publication

  Linda, IMO, when the free press begins to act as a “government” of its own, beholden to themselves and their own inherent self-interest of avoiding controversy that may damage their “brand,” their “access to the marketplace,” they abrogate their right to protection under the First Amendment and the rest of us merely called the spade a spade.

  This is exactly what happened. Someone got their panties in a bunch and raised hell eliminating our access, however so briefly to a comic strip.

  BTW, on a friendlier note, I do enjoy your Editorial Notes.

  Best regards,

  Jim

• 3. Jeffrey Stewart  |  November 9th, 2009 at 10:00 pm

  “Get over it, people”

  Wow, can you be more condescending? You are right, this is a trivial issue. But your decision to poll this is not trivial. You seem to trivialize peoples reaction. You need to get over it and understand why this ‘trivial’ action was meet with non-trivial feelings.

  You are right, the press is yours (figuratively) and you have the right to print what you want. But just like books being pulled from any library is viewed as censorship, your action is view as censorship.

  You may call it editing, I call it filtering. This trivial action is a filter on my papers content, a paper I pay for. And I do not agree with your editorial decision.

  If this issue is so trivial, why did you find it important enough to take action? I can tell I heard yelling in my household over this action, precisely because it is trivial… and ridiculous.

  Get it?

• 4. Shelly  |  November 10th, 2009 at 8:35 am

  “How about this: It’s a comic strip”

  Exactly our point! It’s a comic strip…comic being the operative word. I went to the Zits website to see said offending strips…and really? I could see why you would pull the strip if Jeremy and his girlfriend were adult size…but they were obviously kids and in 2 of the strips they were sitting. This really wasn’t that big of a deal (agreed) but from the things you’ve said, I agree with a previous poster that it really doesn’t seem that you put much thought into the decision.

• 5. Seve Ballic  |  November 10th, 2009 at 9:03 am

  Linda, first of all your definition of Censorship is way off base. Nowhere is it specified a censoring body HAS to be a government body. A parent censors their childrens TV viewing. An employer may censor employee internet usage. A quick Google search reveals the definition of censorship to be quite different from what you portray it to be.

  “Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.”

  Secondly I feel that the reason so many have responded so strongly is because you’ve insulted them to the core of their intelligence. I ask you, who do you think you are to tell ME what is offensive? You say its “tongue in cheek”? Am I to believe you would contact a syndicate rep and tell him you are pulling a comic strip on a lark. The rep pointed out that you were the only one of 1600+ editors that responded in such an indignant, self-righteous manner. The stance you portrayed to the syndicate rep is representative of the community as a whole and I for one am offended and embarrassed by the action you took. You call it editing but it ceased being editing when you projected yourself as the moral spokesman for the community. Get off you high horse, except the fact your behavior was inappropriate and realize that you are to held accountable to the citizens of this community just as you preach the local politicians should be held accountable.
  I also would not pat yourself on the back to strongly over the fact the Zits issue was a popular one for you. The only reason it was “hit” so often is because everyone who was offended by your actions was pointing it out to others. I, for one, printed your comments, the comics and the responses. The reaction from friends and colleagues were unanimous, you over stepped your boundaries. Embarrassingly so. You didn’t even have the facts correct as to which characters were actually portrayed as naked! Did you even look at the strips prior to written your initial post? How about prior to sending the letter to the syndicate rep?
  I read the post on the curb cut and I felt it served its purpose, it informed and conveyed your opinion, but it did not interfere with the flow of information. The fact that the Zits comic was blocked by you because you and a few others somehow found it to be offensive is not disturbing to me. What I do find disturbing is if your moral compass finds this offensive enough to keep out of the paper, what else and what actual news are you withholding from us, the citizens, so that we are not offended, scared or scarred. I know many crimes are not reported in this paper and I always assumed it was because the RRStar was partially lazy, partially trying to portray a less violent community and for some reason beholden to local politicians.
  Bottom line here is that I do not trust you to edit my news. The bigger picture is not of the Zits comic strip, it is of the decisions of what is acceptable for the community to read. If you feel we are not to be exposed to something as innocent as comic strip then how are we to trust that we will receive a true exposure of the depth of crime and corruption in the region? To be a senior editor whose trustworthiness is questioned? Difficult position to be in.
  You come across as insulted and indignant. You need to “Get over it”!

• 6. chris73456  |  November 10th, 2009 at 4:50 pm

  How dare you tell me what to comment on or read–if you are the voice of reason we are in big trouble. I especially like the way you got ALL the facts. Did you even read that before you sliced it?

• 7. Jeffrey Stewart  |  November 10th, 2009 at 5:15 pm

  Ditto

• 8. readingmike94  |  November 11th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

  LInda the sound of your silence is deafening you can\’t respond? typical rrs reporter/blogger you get called out and then when you are called out you have no response

• 9. chris73456  |  November 11th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

  There you go.

• 10. Nicolas Stewart  |  November 11th, 2009 at 8:27 pm

  “For context: Editor’s Note is generally in the top 10 rrstar.com blogs (Pat Cunningham’s Applesauce is the granddaddy of them all; he gets more page views than the next nine combined.) I can usually hold my own at position seven, eight or nine. With 1,250 page views, plus what I normally drive in a month, I’m going to jump right up there to the middle of the pack.”

  Hey guys, look! Unwarranted self-importance!

  “Then there’s this: Just because those posting rabid responses and calling me names think their righteousness is where the world circles, consider that my print newspaper readers do not all share your sentiments. The Register Star and rrstar.com reach 86 percent of the adults in the Rock River Valley. That’s a couple hundred thousand people; trust me when I say there’s not agreement among them. Different stroke, different folks .”

  And apparently your strokes are superior those of us folks eh? Oh and if there are so many people who may potentially AGREE with your censorship (Read: “fascists”) why aren’t they on here defending you? Probably because they haven’t read about the uproar in your paper (that we pay for). Why wouldn’t they have read about it? Oh yeah! Because you have rejected all the letters sent in criticizing you!

  Hmm, silencing dissenting views….where have I heard of that being done before?

  “How about this: It’s a comic strip. I wrote both those posts with tongue-in-cheek.”

  Was the pulling of the comic (this being the ONLY paper that pulled that comic, out of some 1,600 as you yourself admitted in a previous blog) tongue in cheek also? It strikes me has a bit…I dunno….unprofessional–to edit your paper for your own amusement. The Germans have a word for that “Schadenfreude”
  It means laughter at the expense of others.

  Anyways the fact that an 18 year old high school senior stuck in public school (me) understands why pulling ANYTHING from the paper because you don’t like it is wrong, and a middle age two-bit “writer” can’t. It’s…frankly frightening.
  I just hope that civil liberties aren’t TOTALLY dead by the time I “grow up”, whatever meaning that term still has.

• 11. chris73456  |  November 12th, 2009 at 3:37 pm

  I think Linda is on hiatus–or someone took her computer away–or she jumped with her golden parachute!!!

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