holy "missing the point," batman

I was forwarded the email that follows from a friend who contacted the Pitt News about its chronic bouts of stupidity (see for one amongst myriad examples) and the rebuttal letter which they are now refusing to print, only to have this intellectual equivalent of rotting deer carcass sent back his way from one Jessica Lear, editor in chief.

I chose not to print the rebuttal because it would lend some sort of legitimacy to Scott's original column, suggesting that it even deserves the attention of the rebuttal. What I did print last week was a retraction and an apology to the readers, explaining our policy on plagiarism (which is a no-tolerance policy) and the actions I took in response. The writer was dismissed and banned from ever working for The Pitt News again.
Thanks for your concern.

Jessica Lear
Editor in Chief
The Pitt News

So, and follow me on this wild ride kiddos, she is choosing not to print the letter that she A) promised to run in the paper, and B) asked to be resubmitted several times, with the reason that printing harsh criticism of something apparently lends to it unmerited "attention." The very face of journalism itself will surely be shaken from its foundations with this remarkable contribution to media theory, and, to take one relatively small example, Ms. Lear should now begin advocating that the BBC remove mention of U.S. troops having killed three children at a checkpoint, because this sort of reporting gives too much credibility to the violence of the U.S. occupation in the first place.

Simply following the tortured logic of media commissars is a task of Herculean proportions.