Gun freak and generally washed-up rock star Ted Nugent says he has been fired from his gig as a columnist for the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Was it because he wrote some sort of wild piece advocating free machine guns for mental patients?
No. He says it was because his editor told him he had to be nice and wasn't allowed to say anything mean.
The new editor of the Waco Trib recently told me that I could only write nice
things about people, that I could not be critical. Basically, that I
need to tone it down. I can not, nor will not, comply with this Romper
Room request. My reply: Nuts!
The editor is wrong to try and muzzle my opinions.
As a columnist, I express my opinions. That’s what columnists do. That’s
also the charge of an independent and free press.
Well, if that's really what Nugent was told -- and it's entirely possible given the sad and sorry state that some newspapers have fallen into -- then it's the editor who should be fired.
If you don't think editors ever say such things, consider the Hartford Courant, which just the other day lost a columnist who quit/was fired because the paper refused to run a column about a major advertiser who is under investigation by the state for fraud.
However, I suspect that in Nugent's case that's probably not exactly what the Waco editor told him.
But since there is no comment from the paper on this just yet, we'll have to wait and see.
While nailing himself to the cross as the newest martyr of journalism, Ted compares the paper to Nazis (hence the Bastogne "Nuts!" reference above) and himself to Thomas Paine.
Ted, you ain't Thomas Paine. Paine never wrote:
Wang dang, what a sweet poontang
A shakin' my thang as a rang-a-dang-dang in the bell
Down on the street you know she can't be beat
She's so sweet when she yanks on my meat
What the hell
But then Nugent writes something that does sound like Common Sense:
This newspaper and others should encourage spirited and lively debate
and criticism, especially when so many newspapers are losing
subscribers. I don’t support milquetoast journalism. It bores me.
You are free to disagree with my opinions. In fact, I encourage those of
you who do to fill the letters to the editor page of this newspaper. I
revel in open debate. That’s the America I know and love. Express
yourself, Texas. Lay it on the line. Give it your best shot. Be bold in
your disagreement.
Construcitve, bold criticism is cool. It rocks. It can literally change the course and destiny of an individual, neighborhood, community, and nation. It is the most basic of our Constitutional rights — the 1st Amendment. Failing to criticize emboldens politicians to stay on course regardless how many icebergs are dead ahead. Political correctness is the cancer of journalism, not its cure.
Ted, if you wrote more stuff like that -- and laid off the "Obama is a Marxist" crap -- people might actually start taking you seriously.
UPDATE: Here is the Waco editor's side of the story:
One of the first things that the Trib’s new owners, the Robinson family, made clear to me was that changes were coming to our opinion page.
The first, spelled out by Gordon Robinson, president of Robinson Nedia: Expect more conservative editorials.
The second was less public but no less important to the Robinsons: The opinions we published were going to be thoughtful and civil.
No more name-calling, they said. Make sure everyone on our payroll knows that.
The editor, Carlos Sanchez, goes on to quote Nugent's response, which was apparently delivered on his web site rather than in person
When I shared Nugent’s posting with the Robinsons, I got clear direction from them to pull his column from their newspaper.