Anniston Star protests "Doonesbury" censorship (38 papers affected)

[Newsjock]

http://poynter.org/forum/?id=misc

From CHRIS WADDLE, VP/News, Consolidated Publishing Co., publishers of The Anniston Star: Continental Features, a publishers consortium that prints Sunday comics for 38 clients, has killed the cartoon strip Doonesbury. The publisher and editors of The Anniston Star, one of the newspapers, object to the action they interpret as censorship.

What follows are copies of email messages from Van Wilkerson of Contiental, from H. Brandt Ayers, Chairman of Consolidated Publishing Co., publishers of The Anniston Star, and Star Editorial Page Editor Bob Davis, writing to members of the National Conference of Editorial Writers.

"... To All Continental Features Sunday comics clients:

"Last month, I contacted you about your preference on whether Doonesbury should remain a part of our Sunday comic package. Of our 38 newspaper clients, 21 favored dropping Doonesbury from the lineup. 15 voted to keep it as part of the package. Two people had no opinion or preference.

"As a result of this survey, I feel that is time to act to seek a replacement strip for Doonesbury."

more

[CO Liberal]

1. If They Replace "Doonesbury" With "Mallard Fillmore"...

...the Anniston Star should sue.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. They hate us because of our freedom.

I'm sure they're starting to warm up to us by now.

[Joanne98]

3. Nazi book burners

Had nothing on the Republicans. I'm expecting the library's to be closed any day now.

[lil-petunia]

4. they won't close

the spies are already in place under Patriot 1.

[Mountainman]

5. Well when Clinton was being criticized in the toons, they pulled all of

ones critical of him out of respect for the presidency, didn't they?

Sarcasm off>

[gratuitous]

6. By George W. Bush vote-counting practices, Doonesbury should be retained

Why, oh why are they dishonoring the 43rd President of the United States by going with the discredited "majority rules" principle? Has Crisco Johnny been notified of this horrid miscarriage of justice?

Curious that they would poll their papers on Doonesbury. Did they also poll their papers on Peanuts? Dennis the Menace? Cathy? Or any of the other "comic" fillers that pollute the comics page? Was it just Doonesbury, then?

[xchrom]

7. when do the fascists

start rounding up the intellectuals?

[Pachamama]

8. Two years ago, I would have considered that to be a ridiculous idea....

...now I think your a "seer" of the future of this country...

I try not to live in fear, but daily I just see more and more indications of what looks like the "un-published" neo-cons plan and vision for the "New American Century"...

:scared:

[Dogmudgeon]

9. As soon as they learn ...

... how to spell "intellectuals".

Which could be a long time.

--bkl
They do have spell check. Damn!

[Bandit]

13. duh.... do they have cowboys at that there roundup

I hopes them guys don't mistook me for no stinkin intelloectual.

[genius]

10. Boycott any paper that doesn't run Doonsbury and let them know

[maxsolomon]

11. not censorship, a 'business decision'

just like the private mall replacing public space, and thereby eliminating behaviors like panhandling, loitering, having fun without spending money, this gets the censorship job done within the context of capitalism.

look what they're replacing it with: get fuzzy, agnes, zits. can't have the consumer mind disturbed by actual content.

[clown]

12. just drop the publisher

The Anniston Star and the 14 other papers who wanted to keep Doonesbury should just drop the comics publisher and find one who will print Doonesbury. Is there anything preventing them from doing this?

[newyawker99]

17. Hi clown!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[daleo]

14. In all fairness, Get Fuzzy did have some anti-war content

Rob's cousin lost a leg in Iraq, something like what happened in Doonesbury.

[Blue Gardener]

15. Get Fuzzy is okay

I would hazard to guess this comic is more left leaning than some others.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

16. Rolling Stone has an excellent interview w/ Garry Trudeau in the latest

issue. He apparently went to school w/ W and Howard Dean!

Excerpt from article:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story?id=6298171

You were two years behind Bush at Yale?

And four years behind Kerry. Joe Lieberman was also at Yale, and Howard Dean was in my class. My feeling is, there should have been a cap this year on Yale graduates running for president . Howard Dean I knew quite well from boyhood. We'd gone to a summer camp together. When Howard became governor, he told some reporter that he'd gotten his sense of humor from me. I wrote him and said, "That's utter bullshit. When you knew me as a teenager, I didn't have a sense of humor. Life was much too grim." I think Howard did an astonishing thing with his campaign. When people look back at 2004, it'll be obvious just how much he turned an election that Bush could have walked away with into a real competition. He forced everybody to take on the war issue. And his fine, righteous anger got the base motivated, in a way that might not otherwise have happened.


Did you know Bush as a student?

We both served on the Armour Council, which was the social committee for our residential college. Nobody in my freshman dorm knew what the council was. But I apparently had shown some leadership qualities in the first three or four days of school, so I was elected unanimously. George Bush was chairman. Our duties consisted of ordering beer kegs and choosing from among the most popular bands to be at our mixers. He certainly knew his stuff -- he was on top of it . Even then he had clearly awesome social skills. Legend has it that he knew the names of all forty-five of his fellow pledges when he rushed Deke. He later became rush chairman of Deke -- I do believe he has the soul of a rush chairman. He has that ability to connect with people. Not in the empathetic way that Clinton was so good at, but in the way of making people feel comfortable.

He could also make you feel extremely uncomfortable. He was very good at all the tools for survival that people developed in prep school -- sarcasm, and the giving of nicknames. He was extremely skilled at controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed humiliation.

[stickdog]

18. Diebold machines were used to tally this vote. (nt)