(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Friday, June 14, 2002
Warblogger-watching grows tiresome. The lummoxes at OpinionJournal are hauling off on the Lebanese, insufficiently outraged journalists, and a poor Ukrainian fellow for not raising an appropriate furor over the Lebanese Daily Star's failure to include the IHT as an insert, as is customary. The reason? The IHT "had an ad from the American Jewish Committee deploring anti-Semitic incidents around the world." As Taranto explains (partly) "Under Lebanese law, a foreign publication distributing in the country cannot publish items deemed propaganda for Israel." He cribbed that explanation from the AP, but neglected to include the sentence that followed: "Lebanon and Israel are technically at war."
Despite an earlier court case occasioned by the Daily Star's inclusion of an IHT insert which carried an ADL insert, Taranto's characterization of the Star's decision not to sell the IHT as "censorship in the Arab world" is questionable. The IHT's agreement with the Star provides the IHT be included without modification. It is curious indeed that an advocate of businessmen's rights of the more rebarbative sorts calls a publisher's decision not to accept an advertisement (with the unfortunate extension being his contractual obligation to refuse the remainder of the paper) "censorship."
