Tag: censorship

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Now You See It

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, whatever his other gifts may be, has clearly never been a reporter.

That might sound obvious, like noting that Bill Gates has never been an NFL linebacker. But it may explain a curious decision of Ryan’s on Wednesday.

For those who missed the drama, several Democratic members of Congress staged a sit-in Wednesday, literally sitting on the House floor until a gun control bill would be heard. This would be shown to the nation via C-SPAN, an all-Congress, all-the-time cable network that normally draws a lower viewership than competitive crochet.

And then Ryan gave the protesters a gift of inestimable value. He ordered the House cameras turned off.

Now, since the cameras belonged to the House and not to C-SPAN, Ryan had the right to do this. No question. But that’s not the same as saying it was a smart thing to do, since:

1) Several of the protesters carried these amazing devices called smart phones and could stream live video for C-SPAN to rebroadcast.

2) Nothing attracts a reporter’s attention – or an audience’s – like a closed door.

It’s sometimes called the Streisand Effect, after a long-ago attempt by the singer to remove a picture of her home from an online collection of 12,000 pictures of the California coastline. Before Streisand’s efforts, six people had viewed the photo online. In the month afterward, that soared to over 420,000.

People want what they’re told they can’t have. Especially when someone powerful or famous says so.

It works on a smaller level, too. Years ago, I was covering the efforts of Emporia, Kan. to hire a new city manager. This was of moderate interest to the community since the incumbent was one of those long-timers who had been around since “Crocodile Dundee” was the biggest thing to hit movie theatres.

And then moderate interest became burning interest. The Emporia City Council went back on an earlier decision and decided it wasn’t going to announce the finalists for the position.

The result was a flood of emails and online comments, a front-page story and a very rapid surrender by the council. The decision to close the doors had become a bigger story than any announcement of the finalists could ever have been.

Most of us, whether reporters or consumers of the news, don’t have a lot of time in the day. There are a lot of things screaming for our attention, most of them claiming to be pants-on-fire urgent. So it’s normal that a lot of stories, sometimes even fairly large ones, will slip beneath the radar of the average reader or viewer.

But we’re also a stubborn bunch. We have been for a long time. And when someone talks down to us saying “You don’t need to see that, “it almost always prompts an immediate “Why not?” For a moment, we KNOW where to focus our attention – and our frustration.

I’m not saying that the gun-control bill was good, bad, or as ugly as Eli Wallach. I am saying that its proponents should send Paul Ryan a thank-you card. Whether they succeed or fail in their quest, they’ve gotten the attention they wanted, and then some.

Come to think of it, maybe the Speaker’s found a second career. I’m sure there are many other struggling broadcasts that could use his assistance in getting a larger audience.

“Live from the Pepsi Center … it’s the 2016-2017 Denver Nuggets season that Paul Ryan didn’t want YOU to see!!”

Couldn’t hurt.

Let us know, Mr. Speaker, willya?

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Never Silent

I’ve started and stopped this column about half a dozen times so far. I doubt I’m alone. Some things, some events are just hard to wrap your mind around.

And when it comes to the murders at Charlie Hebdo, that may just be an understatement.

Understand, I’m used to people who don’t get freedom of the press. Especially this week. This week seemed to abound with folks who flunked Civics 101, reaching its peak in County Councilman Kirby Delauter of Maryland, who became a figure of national ridicule for telling a reporter to never publish his name without his permission or he’d sue. In response, the paper’s next editorial not only used his name in virtually every sentence, it used the first letter of each paragraph to spell out K-I-R-B-Y D-E-L-A-U-T-E-R.

It seemed like a perfect time to smile, laugh and remember a few basic truths. To get silly in a good cause.

Then the news out of Paris came. And it stopped being funny anymore.

I had never heard of Charlie Hebdo before the attacks. I know the type, though. Satire always carries an edge, ready to skewer the sacrosanct and roast the untouchable, whether with the neatness of a rapier thrust or the messy vigor of a chainsaw.

It’s meant to shock people, often to make them step back and think. And it invariably makes enemies. Among reporters, there’s a saying that if you never offend anyone, you’re not in journalism, you’re in public relations. That goes double in satire, where targets are mocked deliberately and openly in a day’s work.

This time, the laughs were answered with blood.

For anyone who creates, this is the fundamental fear. And it’s one that can be fatal in more senses than just the obvious.

When ideas carry punishment, something important dies. When saying the wrong thing can get you fired, arrested, or even killed, the fences start to go up. The bravest fight on, perhaps, but most simply keep their heads down and watch their step. And self-censorship is the most insidious kind of all.

Kill one artist and a hundred more quietly die with her.

I’m aware that calling Charlie an “artist” may be a bit much for some, like putting Mad Magazine in the ring with Pablo Picasso. But freedom of expression and the press doesn’t just protect the elegant. It guards the crude, the irreverent, even the outright repulsive. The problem with saying “No, not him,” is that everyone has a “not him”; protecting those is the surest way to ensure it doesn’t become a “No, not you” someday.

All of which can sound awfully abstract when gunfire starts to ring in the streets. But it matters. Now, more than ever.

Now, a world has to show that fear will not win.

Not by declaring wars, or announcing new laws, or the dozens of things that societies often reach for in the wake of a murderous attack. But by continuing to speak. To laugh. To shout. To risk offense. To show that our voices will not be silenced, that our ideas will not be locked in a drawer and forgotten.

In a way, it’s Kirby Delauter all over again. How do you respond to a demand for silence? Speak even louder.

Delauter, of course, is still a civilized man. He apologized and withdrew his words. I doubt we’ll get the same courtesy from the Charlie shooters or those like them. But that doesn’t matter. The tactics remain the same. Hold the line. Stand the ground. And never let the walls rise.

This is about all of us, polite or obnoxious, French or American, left or right or center. This is about an idea, even a dream.

And it does not die here.

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And the Banned Played On

Who knew I’d been reading Missy such awful stuff at bedtime?

It’s been almost three and a half years now since I began reading to Missy, my wife’s developmentally disabled aunt who’s been a combination of sister, daughter and gleeful friend ever since we became her guardians. We’ve devoured a small library in that time, from the funny to the fantastic.

But maybe we’ve been warping her brain. After all, almost every title we’ve picked has been yanked off the shelves by somebody, somewhere.

Things like that horrid “Wizard of Oz,” dinged for too much negativism.

Or the puzzle-mystery of “The Westing Game,” which apparently shocked at least one parent with its “violence.”

And of course, there’s those utterly irredeemable Harry Potter books, challenged in location after location for supporting occultism. (A curious charge against an author from the Church of Scotland, but there you are.)

But that’s the fun of Banned Books Week. There’s something in it for everyone.

I’ve been a fan of Banned Books Week (Sept. 21-27 this year) for a long time. Which itself is remarkable, since while I’m often fascinated by designated “days” and “weeks,” I’m usually horrible at observing them. I remember Talk Like A Pirate Day only long after my geekiest friends have stopped sounding like a cut-rate Captain Blood. (“Arr, took me car in f’r an oil change, matey!”) It takes me at least 3.14 reminders to tease people about Pi Day. And I really will take the time to celebrate National Procrastination Week – one of these days.

But this one’s different.

I’d like to say it’s because I’m the son of a teacher and a literary omnivore, which is true. I’ve consumed the printed word since the age of two and a half. Around me, talk of banning books is a little like taking a dog’s food dish away at meal time – not advisable.

But that only goes so far.

I’d like to say it’s because it’s a challenge that still goes on, often for the seemingly best of reasons. Again, there’s some truth there. I think every parent should be paying close attention to what their child is reading – but I don’t think any parent should be making that decision for someone else’s child, or restricting the choices of an adult library reader by their actions.

I’d even like to say it’s because of the classics that so often get affected. This one, I have to admit, is only half true. Sure, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” has made the list. But so has the Captain Underpants series. Great fun, but hardly Hamlet.

No, I think what keeps drawing me back year after year is simply this. Banned book attempts are the most unintentionally funny mess since Ed Wood stopped making movies.

We could start with the folks who wanted to ban “To Kill A Mockingbird” for racism if you like.

Or maybe the sheer irony of challenging “Fahrenheit 451,” a book about the damaging effect of burning books.

Someone at some time nearly fainted over the talking animals in Charlotte’s Web. (“An insult to God,” the challenge said.) Or got heated up over how “The Giving Tree” and “The Lorax” would damage a child’s perception of the logging industry. Back in the 1950s, there was even a challenge to “The Rabbit’s Wedding,” about as innocuous a children’s book as you can get – because it had a black rabbit marrying a white rabbit.

Stephen Colbert can’t write stuff like this.

“A very famous writer once said ‘A book is like a mirror. If a fool looks in, you can’t expect a genius to look out ,” Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling noted. “People tend to find in books what they want to find.”

But of course, the funniest bit of all is how banning controversies so often backfire – a fact obvious to everyone but the would-be banners. What do people want? What they can’t have, of course.

“Apparently, the Concord Library has condemned Huck as ‘trash and only suitable for the slums,’” Mark Twain once wrote to his editor. “This will sell us another 25,000 copies for sure!”

So go ahead. Join the comedy. Grab yourself a book. Missy and I will be right there with you.

Let’s make sure readers have the last laugh.