* Yale Daily News or Daily Choose? My Faith Restored.

Mr. Paul Needham
Editor
The Yale Daily News

Dear Mr. Needham:

Over the last two days my post comments for "news" stories have been posted as usual without problem in your paper(two stories on "investment").

However my posts for "opinion" pieces have not made it to your posting board (Lady Gaga;"the words we use").

This troubles me.

Do you have a separate review committtee for news and opinion posts?

Am I being censored? If so, on what basis?

I have posted the "censored" Gaga post on my own blog http://theantiyale.blogspot.com with the question "AM I BEING CENSORED BY YDN".

You may read there that post itself and determine in your own mind what might or might not be offensive about it.

In fact, when it did not appear after eight hours yesterday, I resubmitted it in shorter form (the form which appears on my blog) and it was still ignored.

I believe censorship is beneath the dignity of YDN in 99% of all cases, perhaps excluding "shouting 'fire' in a closed theater" and PERHAPS printing iconoclastic cartoons when religious sects say they are profane in the eyes of that sect.

(I say PERHAPS because I think the Yale Press was wrong to so censor since unlike the YDN they are not a free daily publication with a wide readership who could unwittingly stumble onto something deemed profane by their personal religion.)

I would like to know if this is some technical glitch ("news" vs. "opinion" posting HTML idiosyncrasy?), or if your "opinion column" posting-review-committee has a problem with my free speech.

Do please let me know when you have a moment.

Cordially,


Paul D. Keane
M.Div. '80






Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 6:24 PM
Subject: Re: YaleDailyNews Contact Form


Mr. Keane:

I believe the issue here is the inclusion of the URL for your blog in some of your comments. So long as you avoid doing that, there's no reason to believe your comments won't be approved as quickly as possible.

Paul Needham


Mr. Needham:
Glad to hear it. I am happy to have my faith in YDN restored. I will be happy to omit the blog url in the future.
PK