Copyright Law

Clueless Authors: Government Censorship Better than Corporate

By Dan Gillmor

LA Observed has a post about how KRON TV in San Francisco disinvited the authors of a new book from a talk-show appearance after discovering that the book, No Time to Think: The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle, takes shots at the crappy state of local TV news. My initial reaction was incredulity. I mean, how clueless is that kind of move?

Then I read the entire item, which includes an outraged email from the authors ? Howard Rosenberg, formerly of the LA Times, and Charles Feldman ? in which they write, among other things, the following line:

Government censorship is not nearly as bad as is corporate censorship?especially by a company that serves the public?or ought to.

I find myself hoping that the email by the authors is a fake. If it?s real, the authors need a refresher course in First Amendment 101, not to mention reality. The most likely explanation for the authors? ridiculous statement is that a) they were pissed; b) they wrote their outraged note in haste; and c) they didn?t proofread it before they sent it along.

Why ridiculous? Journalists should understand that only governments can censor. Other entities can make it difficult to get heard by large numbers of people, but that is absolutely not the same thing as being forbidden to publish at all.

And surely the authors should understand something just as basic: Assume, for the sake of argument, that there is such as thing as ?corporate censorship? (even though, as noted, the expression is a non sequitur). To say that it?s much worse than government censorship defies common sense, and makes you wonder about their sense of proportionality. When a local TV station obtusely rescinds an invitation to appear on a talk show, that?s not remotely in the ballpark of preventing the authors from exercising their right of free speech.

Is their book as sloppy as their logic here?

(Cross-posted from the Center for Citizen Media Blog.)

Full post as published by Citizen Media Law Project on December 31, 2008 (boomark / email).