Chilling Effects: Betraying Freedom Of The Press

Chilling Effects: Betraying Freedom Of The Press
Filed under: Free Press, General — Mark @ 4:11 pm

Last week the U.S. Senate voted to condemn the New York Times for running an ad that was critical of the administration and it’s lackey, Gen. David Petraeus. The inevitable consequences of this government imposition of approved thought are already becoming manifest.

The Times itself is slamming its ad sales group for accepting the ad from MoveOn.org and offering them a rate reserved for stand-by advertisers. Public Editor Clark Hoyt enumerated the list of grievances from opponents of the ad. They include:

* More than 4,000 e-mail messages with words like “despicable,” “disgrace” and “treason.”
* George W. Bush called the ad “disgusting.”
* Dick Cheney said the charges in the ad were “an outrage.”
* Thomas Davis III, (R-VA) demanded a House investigation.
* The American Conservative Union filed a complaint with the FEC against MoveOn.org and the Times.
* FreedomsWatch asked the Times to investigate.

And what did this flurry of hard-core conservative pressure yield? Well, the so-called liberal Times caved in to the rightists and proved the effectiveness of shouting down lawful dissent. Hoyt argued that the Times violated it’s advertising policy which states that they, “do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature.” But criticizing Petraeus’ intention to go before Congress and parrot the views of the White House is not a personal attack. It is a substantive expression of a viewpoint that is shared by millions of Americans. What’s more, Hoyt didn’t bother to level the same complaint against rebuttal ads by Rudy Giuliani or FreedomsWatch. Hoyt went even further in defining the lengths to which he would go to muzzle free speech saying…

“…I’d have demanded changes to eliminate ‘Betray Us,’ a particularly low blow when aimed at a soldier.”

Had Hoyt been in a position to do so, he would have forced a private advocacy group to alter the message they wished to convey. And as justification, he implies that a general, who is being used as a political prop by the White House, cannot be called to account for abandoning the American people in favor of his boss, the President. Submission accomplished, Mr. Hoyt.

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http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=619

Espeically the NYT.