Update: Racist owner hires black female editor to take paper “in a new direction,” but will retain ownership, NBC reports.
Goodloe Sutton, who began working for a small-town newspaper in Linden, Alabama, in 1964 and inherited it from his father in 1985, has a long history of publishing racist editorials. For example: “Some of the news programs are making a big to-do about black football players kneeling in the stadium. That’s what black folks were taught to do two hundred years ago, kneel before a white man.” Last week, he drew national attention to himself by editorializing that the KKK should “night ride again” and “clean out D.C.” by lynching Democrats, making references to “hemp ropes.” According to Wikipedia, Sutton’s circulation fell from 7,000 to 3,000 by the mid-2010s; NBC News says it’s now 1,700. Maybe this will get it down to zero, where it belongs. Read story here, here, and here.
Photo: Goodloe Sutton, America’s most racist newspaper editor
Last time I checked there is something in these United States called the first amendment. If you don’t like what the man is writing you don’t have to read it. Most newspapers have lost readership and perhaps there is a strong remnant of the Klan in his area, so perhaps it is a wise business decision and will keep the paper going. Perhaps it’s simply sarcasm. Or he wants to make an overall point about freedom of speech. Sure his speech is repugnant, but it is speech the first amendment protects. And these journalist organizations and schools should take a step back and think about that for a moment. Seems the best solution would be for some of them to write the editor of the paper and see if their opinions will get published. Silencing the paper and this kind of speech does not accomplish anything in the long run, only other speech in the light of day can accomplish something and just America needs a real racist or two speaking out. We will survive it as we have other ugly speech.
Last time I checked the first amendment only applies to the government, not private citizens like me. In any case I’m not censoring his newspaper, I’m only exercising my own first amendment right to criticize its content. His remaining subscribers and advertisers have every right to leave, and if that puts him out of business, that’s the community’s gain and his tough luck.
He has a right to spew his venom, but has no right to be listened to.
The First Amendment means you can say whatever you will. It does not say there might be consequences for saying what you will. Shoot you mouth off in the wrong place, and you might be in for the time of your life!
So true.
The First Amendment means the government can’t censor you. It doesn’t prevent private blogs or outraged strangers from doing so. In this case, a newspaper’s owner has decided to censor himself to save his paper from extinction.