When News Is Suppressed....

.....We Plan To Report It

NobodyOwnsUs
BloggodomeVille


Now, of course, one person's suppression is another person's indifference.

But in situations where this dichotomy arises it is worth remembering what AJ Liebling once said:

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."

On the flip side, however, it is also worth noting something that wasn't even on Liebling's radar screen at the time he uttered his famous words, which is the following:

"Nobody, at least not yet, owns the true citizen journalists of the bloggodome."

Case in point - apparently the editor-in-chief of a local newspaper is upset that a reader of the paper, and a citizen journalist extraordinare, BC Mary has published an Email response from said editor to a query from Mary asking why there was no story in said paper on the Basi/Virk pre-trial hearing that took place Monday.

You can read the entire Email exchange as it was originally reported by Mary at her place here.

What we found particularly interesting was the reported last line of the editor's response that was, apparently, meant to explain why the paper did not run a story on the hearing:

"When there is news, we plan to report it."

The thing is, if the editor did in fact send this statement to a reader in response to an openly asked question, well, we would like to suggest that the statement itself has become news.

Now, it is possible that the editor did not actually send this Email response to BC Mary. For example, some nefarious teenaged kid sitting in his pyjamas in Mill Bay may have hacked into the newspaper's Email server so that he/she could go all churlish on people who had sent in legitimate questions.

And if that is the case we would be happy to print a retraction.

So far though this does not appear to be the case. Instead, as Mary reports on our comment thread, apparently the editor is most upset that her statement to a reader has actually been shared with, gasp!, other readers:

"Can you believe that I got a rocket from Miss Linda for allowing her news to see the light of day? Seems that in her 10 years and 3 cities, only one other scoundrel has had the temerity to quote her news as ... well, you know: news.

I think what got up her nose is the fact that on a silver platter, she handed me a scoop on her own newspaper."


Hmmmmm......

Sounds like a textbook example of a perfectly executed reverse-Liebling-from-the-piked position if you ask us.

Which, of course, is news worth reporting.

OK?


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