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The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Understand Free Speech

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Thu Sep 21, 2006 at 11:57:08 PM EST
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(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

At Daily Kos, on a few occasions, certain issues have caused dustups and have lead Markos to prohibit posts on ceratin subjects. Inevitably, on those occasions, a number of diaries will appear decrying the "censorship" and the "assaults on freedom of speech" and the "First Amendment violations." While not quite as obtuse as that, Andrew Sullivan comes close, in his defense of the "even handed" Brendon Nyhan:

Last Wednesday, controversy broke out when I slammed two liberal blogs . . . In an email Friday morning, Sam Rosenfeld, the magazine's online editor, asked that I focus my blogging on conservative targets. He specifically objected to two posts criticizing liberals (here and here) that I wrote after the Atrios controversy. I refused and terminated the relationship.

Let's assume Nyhan is telling the truth here (and he is not for the most part, but leave that aside for a second). How does this comment from Sully make any sense?

Sorry, Michael [Tomasky, TAP Editor], but that's pathetic. The blog partisanship on the right is often depressing - and boy would I have been fired long ago if I had ever been blogging on a "conservative" site. But the politburo on the left is no better. And to think we once believed the blogosphere could liberate independent thought. Yeah, right. You can now read Brendan, freed from the liberal thought police, at his own blog. Support free thought. They won't.

The liberal thought police Sully? Nyhan got an e-mail from management disagreeing with what he was writing (and the disagreement was on facts and judgment, in other words, the meritis Sully) and he chose to resign. He did not get fired. He resigned. One more time Sully, he resigned. Oh, and now he has this nice Time gig. But let's get to Sully's fundamental misunderstandings about free speech and the Media on the other side.

It seems that Sully does not see the irony of his complaining that

we once believed the blogosphere could liberate independent thought

while blogging for Time, whose roster of bloggers includes him, conservative Real Clear Politics and now the "even handed" Brendan Nyhan. The freedom from liberal and/or Democratic thought at Time is pretty apparent. Oh, and of course Joe Klein is the "liberal" columnist for the magazine so . . .

But Time does not have to guarantee "independent thought." Sully does not understand that the blogosphere's promise of "independent thought" springs from the fact that just about anyone can create a blog. The independence comes from the fact that I don't need to write for Time, or The New Republic or The American Prospect to express my opinion. That's why TalkLeft, atrios, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, etc. have succeeded.

Sully still does not get it. Course he didn't really get editing when he was publishing charlatans like Glass and Charles Murray.

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    The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Understand Free Speech | 11 comments (11 topical)
    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#1)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 05:58:36 AM EST
    et al - The fact is that management had every right to tell him what to write about, unless, of course, his terms of employment gave him freedom. The other fact is he had the right to protest and resign. And if management knew their actions would result in his leaving, they fired him. He also has the right to complain, and call attention to himself, just as management has the right to explain. The readers will decide. The bigger truth is that people are starting to recognize that the extreme Right and Left are on the same coin, just opposite sides. You're not going to find much tolerance on blogs of either stripe.

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#3)
    by Che's Lounge on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 06:27:42 AM EST
    The bigger truth is that people are starting to recognize that the extreme Right and Left are on the same coin, just opposite sides. You're not going to find much tolerance on blogs of either stripe. All this article does is empower idiotic claims like Jim's. Heaven forbid anyone should stand for radical change in a radically chaotic world. If there were no tolerance at these sites, they would have fizzled years ago. That is if Jim were correct, which he is not. As long as things are peaceful at the catfish farm the world is fine and we should not rock Jim's dinghy. Anyone who does is an "extremist", which we all know is just one thought away from being a terrist.

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#5)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 07:11:32 AM EST
    Che - Thanks for proving my point. And please. Dinghy? A dinghy in the Palatial Retirement Compound's catfish pond?? Sir, you have wounded me. I would have nothing less than a 30 foot houseboat with twin inboards...

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 09:31:35 AM EST
    ..."if management knew their actions would result in his leaving, they fired him." Not one of your more lucid comments, Jim. Requiring someone to choose between abiding by their contract or exercising their right to leave is not the same as firing them.

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#9)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 10:04:18 AM EST
    justpaul - If you know what the results of your actions will be, then you must be responsible for the acts. That so basic that I am surprised that you question it. i.e. If they knew what would happen, then they fired him. i.e. Knock off four matrtooonis and tell a cop you're not responsible. ;-)

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 10:16:00 AM EST
    Sullivan didn't read Nyhan's column closely and missed the part that he said he quit. But he didn't miss all the parts where Nyhan moaned that it was everyone else's fault. I don't know why he hasn't corrected it, though.

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#8)
    by wumhenry on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 10:16:00 AM EST
    Requiring someone to choose between abiding by their contract or exercising their right to leave is not the same as firing them.
    True, but if the point is whether the managers of The American Prospect's blog tolerate criticism of leftwing targets -- and that was Nyhan's point -- the difference between firing him for criticizing leftwing targets and forbidding him from doing it again is hardly crucial.

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 10:16:01 AM EST
    Big Tent, your post does not make sense because you suggest we "assume Nyhan is telling the truth here," and then you assume he was not. Nyhan's claim is that his editor asked him to target conservative opinion, rather than liberal. If that were true, I think it would be fair to suggest, as Sullivan does, that Rosenfeld's action was inimical to free speech. It would also, as Sullivan writes, tend to discredit the idea that the internet would foster non-partisan political analysis. After asking us to assume Nyhan was telling the truth, you wrote
    Nyhan got an e-mail from management disagreeing with what he was writing (and the disagreement was on facts and judgment
    That's contrary to what Nyhan suggested.

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 10:16:01 AM EST
    Any writer can blog... It just may not happen on the writer's blog of choice. That's not censorship. Unlike the traditional news media, where 90% of readers get the Wall St. Journal, NY Times, Washington Post, or AP feeds in local press -- web readers have access to all kinds of postings, at all types of sources. Even on Kos, a diarist can say "look for my work on this alternative site." If a writer is hired by the Wall St. Journal, for example, they are expected to write for the Journal and to follow their editor's direction. Don't want to do that, choose another job. Writer doesn't want to follow editor's direction and resigns. Not censorship. Writer gets another gig, continues posting and writing. Not censorship. Just that for me, as a web reader, I can find the writer, whether he's on the Wall St. Journal or on the John Smith Blog.

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 02:58:09 PM EST
    JimakaPPJ: so...if Nyhan knew writing what he did would get him fired, does that mean he actually quit? In any case, it's not real clear that the editors realized that their warning would lead Nyhan to quit. Or even that Nyhan realized that he would be warned for writing what he did. Seems like it just wasn't a good fit.

    Re: The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Unders (none / 0) (#11)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Sep 22, 2006 at 07:17:15 PM EST
    Anon - Could be. My point is that both sides are equally wrong. And there's a lot of that going around.

    The "Silencing" of Nyhan: Sully Doesn't Understand Free Speech | 11 comments (11 topical)