Herald Ombudsman continues defense of censorship

My colleague Robert from Babalu Blog has the story.

Odds and Ends

McClatchy stock could be worthless.

It's pretty close already. This stock traded in the mid $70s three years ago.

Herald Execs hold retreat at the Biltmore.

This guy should be really, really pissed.

Herald Ombudsman considers censorship (for Cuban-American journalists only).

Disappearing comments

From: Larry Daley
To: ptira@mcclatchy.com
Subject: Censoring comments on Agee Death

Peter Tira, Communications Director
916-321-1941
ptira@mcclatchy.com

Philip Agee's death, was reported about two hours ago in the Miami Herald.

At first perhaps for twenty minutes the article had a comment section; I
posted a remark saying that since Agee died of complications from an
ulcer operation, and we now know that ulcers are caused by Heliobacter
pylori (such operations are no longer common medical practice) this
reflects badly on the Cuban health system.

Almost instantaneously my response disappeared and so did the comment
section
see:

http://www.miamiherald.com/915/story/372631.html

One wonders once again if the editorial staff of the Miami Herald view
their function as that of reporting the news or that of protecting the
image of present Cuban system.

Sincerely


Larry Daley
[Address Redacted]
Corvallis, OR 97330

[Phone Number Redacted]

Herald Censors its company man

The Miami Herald's star sports columnist, Dan Le Batard penned a column entitled "Dolphins' Cameron unlucky to the end" about the Miami Dolphins head coach, Cam Cameron, who was recently fired. It was posted to Herald.Com on the 3rd of January and contained the following paragraph:

And you'll have a hard time finding a leader anywhere in sports who was as unlucky this year as Cameron. Six three-point losses. Zach Thomas and Trent Green and Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams all injured in ridiculous ways so that he was eventually starting a United Nations huddle of a Mormon quarterback, Mexican receiver, Somoan fullback and some guy named Lekekekkkkerkker. And now Parcells happens to him.

Apparently Le Batard made a similar quip on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" where he often guest hosts. It drew some attention to the column and also complaints. The Herald promptly edited the item to read as follows:

And you'll have a hard time finding a leader anywhere in sports who was as unlucky this year as Cameron. Six three-point losses. Zach Thomas and Trent Green and Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams all injured in ridiculous ways. And now Parcells happens to him.

The original copy would have disappeared into the ether if not for the Google cache. See image below:

Click to enlarge

Not known at this point is whether the printed edition included the Mormon, Mexican and Samoan joke. Dan should know by now that the only minority group that is fair game is the Cuban exile community. He is a company man, after all.