Censorship

Earlier today, when I wasn't in a position to save what I was viewing, I came across an Associated Press item about Venezuela's Sunday election results that I knew I would have to find again at the first opportunity. Readers will see why shortly. Because the AP has a habit of quickly replacing items at its national site while failing to leave the original behind -- especially true when the…

As shown on Times Watch this morning, New York Times media reporter David Carr may pooh-pooh the idea of liberal bias. But he's a stronger supporter of the First Amendment than some of his Times colleagues, like movie critic A.O. Scott, who ludicrously defended a left-wing journalist's vandalism of the subway poster as "free expression" and even "democracy." In "The Sweet Spot," a weekly…

Note:  This post has been revised to reflect the Times's 2012 coverage. The original version erroneously linked to a 2010 article. I sincerely regret the error. The New York Times's coverage of year's annual Muslim Day parade in Manhattan appears to have consisted of a photo at This Week in Pictures and another at the City Room blog. At the end of the parade, in news not relayed by the…

New York Times technology correspondent Somini Sengupta wrote a depressing article for the Sunday Review suggesting free speech could be limited by corporations (at the behest of government) in the interest of not offending the sensibilities of violent radical Muslims -- "Free Speech in the Age of YouTube." Sengupta also seemed to sign on to the false notion that the anti-American violence in…

Who knew that "a source familiar with Ambassador Steven's thinking" may have been Ambassador Stevens himself? Citing an unnamed but mysteriously close source on Wednesday, CNN's Anderson Cooper reported that Christopher Stevens was concerned about security threats, Islamic extremism, and an al-Qaeda hit list in the months leading up to the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Two days…

The Innocence of Muslims trailer that has sparked deadly protests overseas is crass, intentionally offensive, and grossly inappropriate. That much is clear. As crude as the video may be, however, Google did the right thing in not removing it from YouTube because its content is not, in itself, what the law would call an “incitement to violence.” Its message did not urge others to participate in…

Is the First Amendment up for debate? On Monday's front page New York Times Cairo bureau chief David Kirkpatrick soft-pedaled the extremism that caused Muslims in several countries to violently protest America on the pretext of an amateurish film uploaded onto Youtube:  "Cultural Clash Fuels Muslims Raging at Film – Devout Values Conflict With Free Speech." One would hope that "free speech"…

Early Friday afternoon, the Washington Post's David Nakamura confirmed that on Tuesday, September 11 -- before the attack in Benghazi that killed Amb. Chris Stevens -- the Obama National Security Council asked YouTube to pull down a video "trailer" for "The Innocence of Muslims," saying it may violate the video-sharing service's "terms of service." Such a move would have removed the film from…

Acting on the premise that the trailer for the low-budget film "Innocence of Muslims" was one of the causes of rioting and anti-American protests across the Middle East this week, the Obama Administration has asked YouTube to "review" whether the two-minute preview "violates the Website's terms of service," a phrase that usually means the government wants the "offending" item deleted. That…

Ginni Thomas of The Daily Caller sat down last week with L. Brent Bozell, Founder and President of the Media Research Center, to discuss a wide variety of issues ranging from media bias to the future of the conservative movement. Bozell asserted that the most under-reported story this year will be the degree in which the media will not report news. He explained, "There is a narrative that is…

Just as the campaign to ostracize Chick-fil-A seems to have blown up in leftists' faces, so too has the earlier left-wing censorship campaign to pressure advertisers of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's ratings are higher than before the recent brouhaha over Sandra Fluke and the effort to remove him from the air is collapsing on itself. Now more bad news has come out for…

Freedom of speech is one of the core values of the American constitutional system. It continues to be so despite the far left's recent campaign to silence those who dared to question. Such censorship efforts have taken many forms, including selective law enforcement against advocates of the free market or traditional values, intimidation of private individuals who've donated money to…

America really is fading away before our very eyes. A public school principal in New York City has banned kindergartners from singing "God Bless the USA" at their graduation, but according to the New York Post, is allowing them to perform Justin Bieber's "Baby":

If an extraterrestrial had tuned into Good Morning America today and watched ABC News's report on national security leaks, he would have come away thinking the Obama administration was valiantly, aggressively pursuing the leakers.  ET wouldn't have learned that there is good reason to suspect that the source of the leaks . . . is the Obama administration itself. An attentive viewer might…