Editor's Note/Update below: AOL editor's email and further business connections revealed.
AOL News has been bending over backwards lately to make sure that they do not cover the
controversy surrounding Playboy.com writer Guy Cimbalo's vile attack on conservative women. AOL News has taken some drastic steps to censor any mention, let alone criticism, of Playboy's screed. They have deleted posts about the article, banned contributors from mentioning it, and even fired one of their liberal writers over it.
The fact that banning reporters from, well, reporting is so contrary to the purpose of a news organization it really is puzzling. It seems to be in direct contrast to their commitment to "traditional journalistic values".
The evidence is stacking up quite high that AOL News fired liberal writer Tommy Christopher today due to his repeated attempts to get coverage of the Playboy attack list on AOL's Politics Daily. Christopher had first attempted to post this criticism of Playboy's sick list the day it was published on their website. However, he was surprised to find that shortly after putting his article on Politics Daily it was deleted by an editor.
His surprise stemmed from the fact that in his two years of writing for the site not one other post had ever been deleted by an editor.
Another former Politics Daily writer NewsBusters spoke with, Caleb Howe, confirmed that fact. And while Tommy Christopher released a statement to NewsBusters criticizing AOL's decision to let him go Caleb Howe went further than Tommy in his opinion of AOL's motives.
"His coverage of the Playboy "hate f***" list must have had a lot to do with Tommy being fired, if not everything to do with it" Howe told NewsBusters. "It would be absurd to think the timing is coincidental" referring to the fact that Christopher was fired three days after his original Playboy story and only hours after pitching a new story on the same topic. Further allegations of AOL censoring coverage of the Playboy controversy came to light when Christopher and Howe appeared on Media Lizzy's show this afternoon.
At the 74:50 mark of the show Media Lizzy (Elizabeth Blackney) claimed that her editor, Michael Kraskin, sent her an email regarding a question she submitted for the AOL Hot Seat Poll. Her original question was going to be "does Playboy empower or exploit women". In his response email Media Lizzy claimed that Kraskin asked for a different question and said "This Playboy story is something we have internally decided not to address".
Tommy Christopher claimed on the show that AOL told him the story was pulled because the Playboy story was too profane. However, Christopher's story censored out all of the profanity and given Media Lizzy's claims it seems that no mention of the Playboy story would be acceptable to AOL. Plus there is a post by Christopher that has been on AOL's Politics Daily (until recently called Political Machine) for nearly a year with several uncensored curse words and was not mentioned as a problem by anyone NewsBusters contacted.
NewsBusters contacted Politics Daily's editor in chief, Melinda Henneberger who both deleted Tommy Christopher's original story and fired him, for comment but she never returned our email.
As Christopher notes in the statement he released to NewsBusters he was a productive and successful writer for AOL. He is a well respected, widely read, and widely linked writer. His stories and opinions have been featured on Bill O'Reilly, Hot Air, Red State, The College Politico, The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, and even NewsBusters. It seems highly unlikely that AOL fired him for lack of performance and it is important to note that nobody has claimed that as of now.
With all of this it seems that coincidental timing is an extremely hard sell for why Tommy Christopher was fired by AOL News today. It appears that Christopher was intent on covering a story which he found to be particularly important but that Aol News had "internally decided" was off limits.
Has the fact that AOL's parent company, Time Warner, has a business relationship with Playboy affected their editorial decisions? After all Time Warner is a major national distributor of Playboy TV through their cable company.
Editor's Update (Ken Shepherd | 10:30 EDT): Michelle Malkin has an excellent idea:
I certainly don’t agree with the left-leaning Christopher’s politics. But he showed guts blogging about the Playboy “hatef**k” list when few others on his side paid attention or cared. I think U.S. News should trade in tired old Bonnie Erbe and hire Tommy Christopher.
Update | AOL editor's email revealed
Media Lizzy has forwarded the email she was quoting from to NewsBusters. Here is a screen shot of the email from AOL editor Michael Kraskin to Media Lizzy which confirms her claims:
Update | Further Time Warner/Playboy business connections uncovered
NewsBusters has uncovered a marketing and distribution contract between Time Warner and Playboy's print division.The contract establishes a working relationship from January 2006 through January 2009. NewsBusters contacted OneCLE, the site that is hosting the copy of the contract, and they confirmed that the contract was taken from Playboy's SEC filings. This new fact shows that the two companies have a deeper and broader connection than first reported.
NewsBusters also contacted Time Warner for comment on the extent of their business relationship with Playboy but has yet to receive a response.
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Media imploding every day...
June 4, 2009 - 22:52 ET by SlyrrUnder Obama's regieme of intimidation, threats and blackmail, this is no surprise at all. The arrogant media know no fear or scruples any longer. They think it's only a matter of time before the Democrat government takes them over and turns them all into puppets to Obama and his thugs.
They should be outraged and exposing this, but they're not. Because they're so blinded and in love with Obama that they're ready to sell themselves to him like the whores they are. In their minds, it will be a 'return to civility' because all opposing viewpoints will be stamped out at the point of an Obama bayonet, and the liberal lunatics (who agree with his terrorist/bigot leanings) will be the only ones left anyway. Why would they be afraid of selling themselves to Obama when they agree with everything he says anyway?
Chris 'Thrills in his pants' Matthews is their exemplar - the onion of a man who said after the election that making Obama look good was now 'his job', regardless of what Obama actually did.
So why should AOL/Playboy be ashamed of firing reporters to hide their hate and their descent into madness? They went over the deep end ages ago.
But I think more and more liberal 'reporters' are slowly coming to the realization that this brave new world Obama is creating is a foul, ugly thing in which freedom and liberty are stamped down in favor of lies, propaganda, bigotry, terrorism, greed and hate.
More and more reporters, who got so used to slamming Bush every day, are writing SOME negative reports of Obama and the other crooks he's surrounded himself with. And they're being punished for it. This is not the future full of peace, hope and joy that their god Obama promised them.
The more of them that wake up the better, and the sooner the better. The looney left is getting bolder and crazier by the day, and Obama is looking more and more like the illegitimate spawn of Neville Chamberlain and Hitler. He's both an appeaser, and a tyrant. But he can't be both for much longer.
Sooner or later, he's going to go too far, and even more of his media slaves will be opening their eyes to the horrible thing they helped to create....
→ AOL
June 4, 2009 - 23:10 ET by Cool ArrowI didn't know "Internet Training Wheels" still existed.
Honestly, my daughter used to use AIM, but what I remember of AOL was that they got bundled with computers back when WIN95 was popular, and ppl got stuck with an extra 19.95 on top of the extra phone line.
Does Ted Turner still have something to do with them?
"The Rule of Law is the only thing that separates us from Democrats" - a Firefighter
AOL, the early years
June 4, 2009 - 23:16 ET by RiharDoes anyone remember back in the early '90s when Netscape was first taking off and anyone with any real interest in where the internet was going recognized AOL for the waste of time that it is? There were whole threads of conversation on early websites and "bulliten boards" with titles like "AOL S***s"
Well, the more things change...
On a side note, my mother still uses her multitudes of AOL discs mailed to her (and me) on a weekly basis way back when. They hang in her gardens and barns. You see when the breeze blows they spin and wobble and the flash of the reflected sunlight scares away birds that might eat her crops or nest in her barns.
Darn useful things, those AOL discs.
When a liberal speaks, the truth is busy elsewhere.
→ Chia AOL
June 4, 2009 - 23:18 ET by Cool ArrowSmear some of that Chia goop on the discs, and you can grow your own coasters.
"The Rule of Law is the only thing that separates us from Democrats" - a Firefighter
Rahm & Axeldork & Gibbsie Want the Choir to Imitate Chrissie the
June 5, 2009 - 02:24 ET by daveinbocaTweety Bird in his craven kowtowing to Obama. Brian the Bowin' Go-fer on NBC also follows the corporate handbook for Groupthink. The Fourth Estate is now a compleat Shill for this group of mountebanks from Chicago, led by a small boy pretending to be Prezi who is lost without his teleprompter.
Tommy Christopher
June 5, 2009 - 03:07 ET by PeachyKeenI've read his columns at Politics Daily. He's childish and not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. I'm sympathetic to anyone who loses his/her job, but in this case, it was only a matter of time.
As usual with liberals,
June 5, 2009 - 06:45 ET by motherbeltAs usual with liberals, it's not the perpetrator who gets in trouble, it's the one who exposes the disgusting act.
Just like the memoes found on an open computer, that proved collusion among Democrats to obstruct Miguel Estrada. The guy that found them and exposed them had to resign for daring to read them.
I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows. -Bart Simpson
A former AOL member
June 5, 2009 - 08:55 ET by SasquatchI ditched Always Off Line six months ago--best move I ever made. It's the online equivalent of Orwell's Ministry of Truth. The only conservative posts that show up on their boards are filled with bad grammar, misspelled words, transposed letters, racial slurs, or hate speech. Conservative posts with any sign of logical or intelligent thoughts disappear quickly (if they ever get posted at all.) Apparently, AOL wants their users to think we're all a bunch of illiterate buffoons.
I also noticed that Newsbusters loads much faster than it did on AOL. Coincidence? Probably. But you never know...
Re ditch AOL
June 5, 2009 - 10:45 ET by slickwillie2001AOL is notoriously hard to 'turn off'. There have been lawsuits and many complaints. Not really unique though, Microsoft internet service can be just as uncooperative. Once companies have your credit card number they don't want to let it go.
Lefty Journalism Standards
June 5, 2009 - 09:48 ET by locomotivebreath1901Spelled h.y.p.o.c.r.i.s.y.
http://locomotivebreath1901.blogspot.com
Editing?
June 5, 2009 - 10:10 ET by Dave NalleAs a news site one would think you would have editors, yet you let this story out with a very blatant typo in the first sentence. How seriously should we take the content with that level of quality control?
Dave
vagueness and ambiguity
June 5, 2009 - 14:40 ET by konoWe're dealing with an article about articles about an article, Dave.... which article are you referring to here? Next time, do everyone a favor and either cite the 'very blatant typo' and 'blatant grammatical error' that moved you to issue the condescending critique, or just grit your teeth at the error(s) and get on with life.
As for the actual subject of the articles, Playboy used to have some semblance of class. But since the internet came, Hefner's rag has been out-done as a cheap peddler of 'tasteful' erotica, and it is clearly out of its element trying to compete with the more-vulgar varieties of porn. Seems pretty clear that the company is toast.
And...
June 5, 2009 - 10:12 ET by Dave NalleOh, and let's not forget the blatant grammatical error in the last paragraph and generally poor writing in this article.
Dave
Playboy is a dirty magazine.
June 5, 2009 - 10:31 ET by sevenThey honored a woman for free speech named Eugenie Scott. She tried to make false charges and wrote an article about a lawyer in California pushing creation texts in schools. Eugenies who story was a lie. Playboy of course honors liars. Eugenie had to write a retraction and face legal problems.
Back to the point. Playboy is on the ropes and is desparate. erbe is the next one that should go for her calling for sesual assualt.
The same medi that used death threats and vulgar cursing for Miss california USA is driving away more lefties that are getting fed up.
Playboy is a dirty magazine.
June 5, 2009 - 10:31 ET by sevenThey honored a woman for free speech named Eugenie Scott. She tried to make false charges and wrote an article about a lawyer in California pushing creation texts in schools. Eugenies who story was a lie. Playboy of course honors liars. Eugenie had to write a retraction and face legal problems.
Back to the point. Playboy is on the ropes and is desparate. erbe is the next one that should go for her calling for sesual assualt.
The same medi that used death threats and vulgar cursing for Miss california USA is driving away more lefties that are getting fed up.
Gee, Beaver... you're a douche.
June 5, 2009 - 14:43 ET by pahuberwell aren't you thmarty pants.