Censored Again by The New York Times: Should I Contact the Guiness Book of World Records?

In response to Frank Rich's August 23 op-ed, "The Guns of August", I submitted the comment, below, which needless to say was censored. What a surprise!

What Frank Rich labels "irrational radicalism" is not restricted to the right.

In response to Maureen Dowd's April 29 op-ed, "Vice's Secret Vices", an online comment, no. 8, was posted which could be interpreted as a call to murder a former, very senior, U.S. government official.

This comment, which made it past The New York Times' moderators, was ultimately removed after I contacted a very senior editor of The New York Times.

As that same editor can attest, The New York Times also permitted anti-Semitic online comments until several months ago, when I brought this phenomenon to the attention of this editor, and he quickly intervened.

These comments made their way past the moderators of The New York Times, at a time when I was often witnessing the rejection of my comments. My complaint to the Public Editor elicited the following response, dated June 29, 2009, from Clark Hoyt:

"I have inquired about why your comments have not been posted and have been told that those that were rejected were considered off the topic. Times editors agreed that some of the comments you objected to should not have been posted, and it is my understanding that they were taken down."

Clark Hoyt had "been told" that my comments were "off the topic"? Why didn't he take the time personally to examine the examples that I sent to him?

Clark Hoyt stated in his e-mail to me that "I am considering a public editor column on the subject of comments on the Web site of The Times." In July 2008 I had also been informed by the Public Editor's office that "Mr. Hoyt is thinking about addressing the issue of comment moderation in an upcoming column" and was requested to provide examples of comments that I submitted but were rejected. Over the past year, I provided many examples, but the long awaited column has yet to appear.

In short, radicalism and intolerance extend to both the right and left, and the breathing space allotted to those of us in the "middle" often appears to be shrinking.

I should mention that I also sent the above, including the text of the threatening comment that was posted by The Times' "moderators", to Frank Rich by e-mail. No response yet from Rich, and I'm not holding my breath.