Namby pamby journalism

It’s bad enough that newspapers let readers vote on what comics to read.
It’s worse when newspapers hire consultants to tell them what news
articles readers want to read. Here is a newspaper that is encouraging
readers to let them know

whether they should keep running the words of a particular syndicated
columnist.

What utter and complete crap.

There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a captain who let the crew
vote on where to take their liberty. He was immediately relieved of
command. The same thing should happen to any newspaper editor or
publisher who takes a vote of staff or even the readers vote to
determine content. Decisions like this should be based on what we used
to call editorial judgement. This isn’t editorial judgement. This is
marketing. This is public relations. The end result of all these surveys
are newspapers that are indistinguishable from each other.

By the way, the columnist is question is Ann Coulter
. I can’t stand Ann
Coulter. I wouldn’t run
Ann Coulter’s column in
my paper if 99 percent of the readers wanted to read it and would cancel
descriptions if she wasn’t in there. That’s because in my opinion, Ann
Coulter is a religious
bigot and a liar who
doesn’t have an original idea in her head, but simply takes conservative
dogma and expresses it in the most offensive and intolerant way
possible. That’s why she has so many cheerleaders.

But no columnists should be given the heave-ho because of a stupid,
&@&%!&% reader survey.

If I were Ann Coulter , I
would dash off a letter to the /Erie Times-News/ that she delines to
appear in their newspaper because it would damage to her reputation for
her column to appear in such a rag.

Jeebus! This is why so many newspapers are so horrible to read.