Jeff Martin sets up his defense of, again, printing the names of lawful concealed weapons permit holders by revisiting a previous time in which he did the exact same thing. He justifies it by noting that someone who went on to win a Puleftist prize was involved. He claims:
Every day, it seems, Jim or Jayne or I take a call from someone who wants something kept out of the newspaper. It's usually a name... Each time, we listen. Each time, we refuse...
Yet we try to print everything. Here's why: We print the names of people in the news because that's our business... That means we'll tell them not only what's happening at the city council and at Iowa State University, but also who is arrested, who is having babies, who is selling his house (and for how much), who has died (and of what cause). People expect that from us.
If we leave out just one name, just one fact, we have failed in our mission and damaged our credibility. That's why we printed those gun permits in Iowa. It's the kind of journalism that goes to the heart of the First Amendment.
First, let's get the reason behind this "news" out of the way: It's a way for those who are against the Second Amendment to know who to shun, who to refuse to hire, and who to refuse to do business with. It's a list that tells (stupid) burglars exactly which houses to break into if they want to be armed.
Well they don't exactly print "every name". His paper may print the names of breeders, but they don't print the names of people who terminate babies. Isn't that also news? They don't print the names of licensed doctors and nurses who perform abortions. They don't print the names of people who get sex changes or the doctors who perform them, and they don't print the names of people at Iowa State who are performing stem cell research (outside of government funding.)
Why not? Because journalists go after people they are opposed to, not people they agree with.















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It's the kind of journalism t
December 19, 2006 - 13:59 ET by Dave RIt's the kind of journalism that goes to the heart of the First Amendment.
Actually, it's the kind of irresponsible journalism that gets innocent people killed.
Jeff, you are a complete idiot, and if an innocent person winds up dead due to your vindictive stupidity, I hope to see you held responsible.
Does Jeff Martin have the cou
December 19, 2006 - 14:09 ET by TruthMongerDoes Jeff Martin have the courage to read your brilliant points about abortion, etc and respond? Nah...I bet he's your typical MSM chickensh*t...
Hack restricts 1st Amend for him only...
December 19, 2006 - 16:07 ET by Jack BauerJeff Martin is so supportive of the 1st Amendment that he's set his email to bounce back anyone who dares email him, like I just did. Typical do as I say not as I do liberal, it seems.
I wouldn't mind, but he puts his email link on the Argus website.
jmartin@argusleader.com
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<jmartin@argusleader.com>:
host ent-pocinrl03.gannett.com [167.8.66.17]:
550 <jmartin@argusleader.com>: Recipient address rejected:
User unknown
Dear Jeff (now via NB 'cause you're nowt but a lilly-livered lib)
There's no person so smug, and so self-serving as a deluded hack on a mission.
Isn't the Bill of Rights and the 1st Amendment concerned with the government "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"?
Of course, your whole article is a farrago of ill-thought out gibberish (or maybe from you, it's well-thought out gibberish).
I won't even go into the vast lists of names that you and your rag don't print, because those passing comment on the website have already mentioned the hole in your "argument" bigger than Montana.
The criterion for news or opinion in a newspaper would be, of course, a event that was news; or an event generating an opinion that readers may find illuminating, thought provoking, or even disagreeable.
The transcribing of the names of citizens exercising their legal rights and obligations is not news. Wow, talk about a dog bites man story.
Though I will admit that printing the names of people illegally carrying a concealed weapon would be news, of a sort.
No. It looks to me that you are exercising the power of those who buy ink by the gallon to pursue ordinary citizens for partisan political reasons.
The fact that you seek to dress this up with allusions to freedoms that past citizens with firearms died to achieve, makes your stance even more pathetic.
Proud member of the all-powerful and vast
militarist/industrialist/capitalist/zionist-bagelist complex
RIGHT ON, MY BROTHER! very we
December 19, 2006 - 16:59 ET by kathleenirishRIGHT ON, MY BROTHER! very well put.
Write the condescending bastard, by the thousands.
"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere" -Ali ibn-Abi-Talib, 4th Islamic Caliph
It's easy to blame (and fin
December 19, 2006 - 21:06 ET by sarcasmoIt's easy to blame (and find obvious leftwing bias such as this in) the press, but maybe the solution does not lie in our futile struggle for less media bias. Instead, maybe it's more "Vermont Carry," like all states used to have before all these ineffective but as-holy-to-the-left-as-the-drugwar-is-to-the-right laws got passed. When asked by the left why CCW laws must change, supporters could explain it's the only way to go that's consistent with individual privacy -- and they'd be telling the truth.
JMR