Columbia City Paper and Free Speech

Mike Blake — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:46:00 +0000

Yesterday The South Carolina news station WLTX ran this news blurb about my brothers paper, Columbia Citypaper . It’s really not a big deal on the surface, some restaurant owner doesn’t want the paper there anymore because of the content of an ad. However what’s disconcerting is that the news station itself decides to blame the story on Columbia Citypaper. The first words of the story are “A Columbia newspaper is causing controversy …” Later in the story my brother Paul explains that he got a call a week ago asking him not to distribute the paper to that particular restaurant, and he was glad to comply.

WLTX Generates a controversy

A week later, after the issue has been easily resolved, WLTX makes this their top story. So who’s trying to cause controversy? WLTX is. And they have the audacity to start the story with “A Columbia newspaper is causing controversy ..” a blatant lie. The reporting gets more peculiar as they proceed to air what is a free add for the local restaurant. There is a couple seconds of Paul Blake saying they no longer deliver to that restaurant at the request of the owners. Then Paul does something interesting, and makes an intelligent point right in the middle of their fluff piece. He says “I just don’t think graphic language leads to any irresponsible behavior.”

Biased Flag Waving

The point of course goes ignored. What follows is a tirade about an “argument as american as the flag flying over the restaurant”, completely ignoring the point made by Paul, who happens to have a flag displayed in the window over his shoulder. Columbia Citypaper’s flag gets no mention though. The news station does take another dig at Columbia Citypaper by saying “Check our web site for a list of other sites that have banned the paper.” They fail to mention any of the reasons the other places have banned it. They also fail to mention their source, Columbia Citypaper which playfully publishes a list of establishments that ban them every week.

Speaking of Fuck

This particular ban was due to the use of foul language in an ad. David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of the Rails web framework (which powers the Columbia Citypaper site) recently made a couple posts about colorful language. He point’s out that swearing at work boosts morale . This is far too interesting though for use on an evening tv news blurb.

An epidemic?

Last week here in Orlando, FL , police arrested employees of The Orlando Weekly because of ads that paper publishes. I’m serious, They were arrested for publishing an ad. Now I’m concerned. Can this happen to anyone who works for a newspaper? Some writers like to imply that the US government is behind current attitudes towards the media. Stories like the one in Orlando make those arguments more plausible. When is it time to fight back, when you hear about any alleged rights violation? When someone you know has their right’s violated? Or do you wait until it’s a relative?

Martinicity: Tag fuck

Columbia City Paper and Free Speech

WLTX Generates a controversy

Biased Flag Waving

Speaking of Fuck

An epidemic?