Two days ago, the day before Andrew Sullivan’s regular Friday column was to appear in New York Magazine, he put up this tweet without any explanation. What gives?
Heads up: my column won't be appearing this week.
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) June 4, 2020
Well, The Spectator, of conservative bent, has a theory which is theirs, and it’s not at all implausible. Click the screenshot below to see the short read. Note that they say he’s “not allowed to write his column”, which means censorship. Do they know something we don’t?
First, I went back and looked at what Sullivan tweeted about before that announcement, which might give a clue as to what he was going to write on Friday. What you find is a lot of tweets about balancing protests against spreading coronavirus. Here are two specimens:
The public health authorities' support for possible mass infection events – depending on the politics – effectively ends any credibility they have. https://t.co/NsAFHYOfK6
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) June 3, 2020
Staggering. 4500 people died as a consequence of a parade in Philadelphia in the 1918 epidemic. https://t.co/2UDMKhPlpE https://t.co/YzDOJthwOi
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) June 3, 2020
There are more, but you can look for yourselves (the man is a prolific Tweeter!). If he was going to be censored by New York Magazine, which is über-woke (just read the last page of the paper magazine), it would probably be because he was going to write about a possible double standard of encouraging protests that might kill more people by spreading coronavirus, but only if the gatherings were the kind you approve. It is true that these mass protests, in which many don’t wear masks, do run the risk of igniting hot spots of viral infection, even if one agrees, as I do, with their peaceful intent. And, like church gatherings that violate social-distancing regulations, they risk infecting non-participants who later interact with those infected during the political gatherings. I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but since Sullivan is immunocompromised, he’s more sensitive to the pandemic than most people.
Well, The Spectator does think that the New York Magazine, which probably got a piece by Sullivan and decided not to run it, did so because he’s wrote about protests:
Sullivan revealed on Twitter yesterday that his column wouldn’t be appearing. The reason? His editors are not allowing him to write about the riots.
I’m not sure how they know that, but let’s assume they have backdoor information and press on. The rest of the piece notes that they do have inside information.
Cockburn [the author of the piece] understands that Sullivan is not just forbidden from writing for the New York magazine about the riots; his contract means he cannot write on the topic for another publication. He is therefore legally unable to write anything about the protests without losing his job — at the magazine that, in 1970, published Radical Chic, Tom Wolfe’s brilliant and controversial excoriation of progressive piety. It’s the bonfire of the liberals!
Who cares about the First Amendment? Not the Maoists who are marching through NYC’s media institutions. Safetyism is their creed. Sullivan may be a very small ‘c’ conservative, in some ways, but he is really a committed liberal — an Obama-loving gay man who thinks that Trump’s ‘dangerous fantasies’ threaten America.
Sullivan’s card has been marked, partly because — many years ago — he edited the New Republic and dedicated an issue to a debate aboutThe Bell Curve, the controversial book by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray on IQ. At magazines such as the Atlantic, where Sullivan did some of his best work as a journalist and pioneering blogger, this now makes him persona non grata.
Sullivan, a source close to New York magazine reveals, has to have his work vetted by sensitive junior editors to make sure it doesn’t trigger them. If it passes their sniff testing, it can be published.
If this is how serious magazine and newspapers are treating their writers, Cockburn can’t help wondering what the future of journalism is in America.
If you assume the secret information is true, Sullivan has been forbidden from writing about the protests and riots, perhaps because what he might say (or, more likely, said) is politically unpalatable at New York Magazine. In other words, he’s been censored.
We may never know for sure what happened, as Sullivan is surely forbidden to divulge the details. Is New York Magazine going the way of the New York Times, and joining the triumvirate of New Woke Magazines that also includes the New Yorker? We already know that the Times is beating its back like a penitente over having published Republican Senator Tom Cotton’s editorial calling for the military to be deployed in American cities to quell riots. (I disagree with Cotton’s op-ed strongly, but also think the Times had no good reason not to publish it. It’s of value to see what justifications Republicans and authoritarians use to justify calling in the troops.) We seem to be entering an era in which the liberal media is circling its wagons around politically “correct” opinions, and censoring or backtracking on contrarian views when social media applies pressure. And that is sad. After all, if only approved opinion is published, what will there be to make readers examine their own opinions?
I once subscribed to all three of these rags, and let my New Yorker and New York Magazine subscriptions lapse. I tried to cancel my New York Times subscription, telling them that I couldn’t take their fulminating wokeness, but they offered me a $4/month deal and I caved because I need some journalism that is solid, and the Times does have some solid stuff. But I also began subscribing to The Washington Post.
Sullivan was an odd fish in New York Magazine—a centrist conservative in an Authoritarian Left magazine—but he was a breath of fresh air as well, even if one sometimes disagreed with his opinions. Now that breath has been put on a political ventilator.
h/t: Cate, Simon
Very bad, if true.
Yes. those final two words being pretty important. Conveniently for The Speccy’s argument Sullivan can apparently neither confirm nor deny the gist of their article.
It would be a shame if the NYT had culled Sullivan’s article, although given the stuff that was happening you can sort of understand it in pure PR terms.
However, a genuinely liberal magazine should have some balls, and push through the possibility of some angry Twitter tweets. The more you yield to cancel culture the more vulnerable you make yourself. You can’t genuflect sufficiently for the mob – the slightest hint of a bend in the knee and they’ll pile on even more.
I’m also of the opinion that that Tom Cotton editorial shouldn’t have been printed in the first place*. Plenty of people on the Republican right have opinions about the protests. That doesn’t mean they necessarily warrant an editorial. The same argument could be used to justify any editorial, no matter how deranged the subject, so long as it was popular on the right and revealed their state of mind and beliefs. Plenty of conservatives are creationists; why not hand over an editorial for them to advertise their theory? Why not? Because it’s worthless, irrational and there are more reasonable, less harmful things to write about.
*Once it’s printed it should stay up though. You can’t give the mob veto-power. There are good and bad reasons for not printing the Cotton piece – its innate stupidity, ugliness and fascistic undercurrent would be the former…fear of Twitter reprisals would be the latter.
Well, if it was false, Sullivan could presumably deny it.
And if it was true he could presumably verify it.
By your reasoning if he can do one then logically he can do the other.
No, if it is true, he may be restricted from revealing privae editorial decisions.
If he doesn’t say anything, that’s evidence that it is true.
“Once it’s printed it should stay up though.” [The Cotton op-ed]
It is still up. Has anyone suggested it isn’t?
Yes it is, with a caveat, and the Times has basically said it shouldn’t have been published. Further, they decided not to put it in the print edition of the paper.
If they would put some of those caveats on Stephens, Brooks, and some of the religious wackos the put on the op-ed page, I’d think a lot better of them.
What would the Brooks caveat say? “The following may be namby-pamby and contain fatuous, self-serving appeals to virtue, and strained stabs at wit”? 🙂
How is it that the NYT had a collective major brain cramp and decided to publish online Cotton’s op-ed? Surely Cotton is in the top ten of ideological “red flags” guaranteed to get the Times’s attention and provoke a Pavlovian knee-jerk reaction not to publish.
I reasonably take it that you take some consolation in Cotton’s op-ed not being in the print edition.
I think Cotton lowered the threshold way too low for invoking any law mandating the involvement of the U.S. military. He shouldn’t have mentioned that. But, to the extent that any protesters (I know there are other actors whom PEACEFUL protesters do not claim as their own) feel that they are breath-takingly entitled to riot, commit arson, loot, and throw rocks and water bottles at anyone, Cotton and anyone else is justified in condemning it.
“I’m also of the opinion that that Tom Cotton editorial shouldn’t have been printed in the first place”
The NYT has published op-eds by Putin, Erdogan, the Taliban and Iranian government officials, among others. But an op-ed by a US Senator expressing an opinion supported by 58% of registered voters (and 48% of Democrats) is apparently unacceptable.
Not that it matters but I disagree with Cotton’s opinion. The idea that it was unfit for publication is ridiculous.
Have no idea why they are afraid to print whatever he writes. The press on MSNBC has been pushing more info about the virus and how it is going in America than anyone. It is not particularly good and the Trump crowd have moved on as if the pandemic is over. It is not and is moving the wrong way in several states. People jamming together in large protest demonstrations are really taking a chance far as I can see and I don’t know why anyone would be censored for saying so. Is it okay to be stupid because you are doing something approved of?
Of course. Remember Stalin and Lysenko?
Just a few miles up the road from where I grew up in small town Iowa there is an even smaller town, Stanton, Iowa. It is referred to as The Little White City. I am not sure about calling it a city, population 650. More like a small spot in the road. But the white city name is suppose to be because all the houses are painted white. I believe it was a law. However, if you check the population is 99.9% white with maybe one Hispanic around. Anyway, white city applied.
The claim to fame is that Virginia Christine, also known as Mrs Olsen, the folgers coffee lady was born there.
I said way back the The New Atheists were not a political or philosophical group but a set of like minded people who roughly coordinated their output by affinity rather than organisation. There were a few small organised groups but they never developed into something bigger.
I don’t expect that there is any Woke Organisation but a set of like minded people who roughly coordinate their output by affinity. The one frightening difference is that the ‘like minds’ have been formed by the consequences of the long march through the institutions, and not broadly educated enough to resist the siren calls of censorship, control of ‘free’ speech or deplatforming.
My best guess is that there will eventually be pushback against this worldview (everything changes in time) and the struggle will be bitter and scarring for everybody involved.
Meanwhile chop wood, carry water. Or keep calm and carry on.
Perhaps some kind website could publish his planned article under a pseudonym – like “Dean Warn Villus”?
Here’s what I think about the Spectator article: what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
It would be easy for Sullivan to disavow the assertion being made. His not doing that is a pretty good indication there’s truth in it.
If the Spectator is wrong, there is still the mystery as to why Sullivan’s column mysteriously won’t appear as scheduled.
That is a bit disingenuous, you being human cannot operate like that.
What does that even mean?
Historian’s comment is simply a knowing nod to Hitchens’s Razor.
Unlike platforms like Twitter, publications are partly responsible for what they put out. As such, they have the discretion to publish or not. If they choose to do so, this is unfortunate. What it is not, is a First Amendment violation
I think the objection here is that New York Magazine thinks enough of Sullivan to contract his exclusive services as a columnist, but he has expressed an opinion they do not care to be seen as sharing. While the magazine has every legal right to do as they have done (unless something in his contract says otherwise), their action is not exactly a triumph for freedom of expression and liberal values. We to expect, perhaps for no good reason, to think that publishers value those ideals.
I’m reminded of David J. Pecker of The National Inquirer buying a story on Trump and then not publishing it. Perhaps Mr. Sullivan should have included a clause in his contract to the effect that the magazine would have to pay him an additional pretty penny for any article it chose not to publish, in exchange for his refraining from commenting on that squelching.
I wonder if Sullivan’s contract has a non-disclosure/do not disparage clause in it.
So it is with private tyrannies, from which one tolerates what one would not tolerate from the (U.S.) government. (Assuming one had the money to hire an attorney. “Equal Justice Under Law” and all that.)
Sullivan is the public intellectual and writer most responsible for gay marriage’s existence.
It was he who wrote the seminal essay advocating gay marriage in the New Republic in 1989. (Marty Peretz, then owner, published it.)
I remember he was excoriated for it by many on the gay avant-garde since they felt he was trying in essence to “heterosexualize” them. Sullivan became something of a pariah at the time for many patrons of Washington DCs most popular gay bar, JR’s.
Here is the essay:
https://newrepublic.com/article/79054/here-comes-the-groom
50 years ago, Tom Wolfe observed the activity of flak catchers at social agencies. Today, we have flak allies migrating outward from campuses into newspapers, magazines, and corporate offices, such as
Google, as James Damore discovered. Flak allies are already administering tests of rightthink to applicants for faculty jobs at the University of California (see Diversity Statements). Perhaps soon the limits of allowable speech will be formalized, a service the Roman Curia’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith provided to us all, once upon a time.
I too agree in principle with the message of the peaceful protests. But as I browse my Facebook feed and see so many of my progressive friends who were frothing in rage at people taking their families to the beach last week now cheeering on mass protests (and in some cases defending the riots) — without so much as a peep about social distancing — yes, I can see how junior editors of “woke” persuasion might be triggered and made to feel “unsafe” by Sullivan lifting the veil on the matter.
You don’t see a difference between people piling into a swimming pool in the Ozarks and people protesting the death of George Floyd?
One difference is that most of the protesters, around here anyway, are wearing masks.
Precisely. And, to some degree, social distancing.
Then too, they are protesting something real, not delusional.
Precisely. And, to some degree, social distancing.
Then too, they are protesting something real, not delusional.
As far as we know – the science on masks is weak – it’s not the absence of masks, it’s the absence of social distancing.
Good point
In NYC outside my window nearly all the protesters are wearing masks.
Like the swimmers they’re outside also, which is good from a virus perspective. And facing one direction.
THis is as opposed to church, btw, which is all indoors as they do their singing, witnessing and other “breathy” nonsense.
D.A. J.D. NYC (New Atheist and writer)
Churches are practicing social distancing (as were the Jews in NYC participating in the funeral that earned the wrath of the Mayor). The protesters are not observing social distancing and are gathered by the thousands in close proximity.
We were told that failure to observe social distancing constituted murdering grandmothers and human sacrifice, the waiver being granted to the protesters exposes the whole thing as a farce.
This is a shame; I would like to know his view of current events.
There is a legal distinction between peaceful protests and other kinds of public gatherings, in that the First Amendment specifically mentions “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” as protected. That implies special protection for peaceful protest and political speech, beyond what’s offered other forms of public gatherings and other forms of speech.
So the best any politician can legally do is encourage people to practice good hygiene while they peacefully protest.
Peaceably and peacefully are not completely interchangeable terms, even though much overlap in peaceful and peaceable activities exist.
Peaceable means “Free from the character of force, violence, or trespass”.
It does seem that the general view these days is that you can do things that would otherwise be against the law, as long as you are engaged in protest.
Protest that involves nonviolent lawbreaking is civil disobedience, where one expects and accepts the likelihood that you will face legal penalties for the behavior.
Your argument is nonsense.
As a matter of constitutional law, the right to peaceful protest has always been subject to time, place and manner restrictions. It is not an unrestricted right.
The government either has the right to temporarily ban all mass gatherings on public health grounds or it does not. But the government does not have the right to permit or prohibit mass gatherings based on whether or not it approves of the message the crowd is sending.
Cities have implemented legal time and place restrictions, in the form of curfews.
Protest is time sensitive, and outlawing all public protests until the COVID situation is resolved (which is likely well after the next election) would effectively be a complete ban, not a time and place restriction. That would seem to me to violate the constitutional right to hold a peaceable assembly for the purpose of airing grievances.
I, too, searched Sullivan’s twitter feed and nowhere can I find it stated or even implicitly asserted that Sullivan’s column was censored because there was some contractual injunction and “His editors are not allowing him to write about the riots,” as Cockburn states. This is a critical assertion and needs to be documented.
That said, I think that’s the probable reason for the prohibition, whether contractually legitimized or not. But Sullivan has also condemned in no uncertain terms the NYT for the ‘woke’ response to the Tom Cotton op-ed and if NY Mag is as woke as it seems, they wouldn’t like that, either, which leads me to observe that one aspect of this which troubles me greatly is that New York Magazine prevents Sullivan from even giving the reason/s why he’s being censored; and the magazine is as silent as the grave. If they are going to censor him, at the very least, they ought to state the reason. T find this ominous. Craven bastards.
Mebbe so, and if New York mag censored Sullivan as claimed, shame on them. But Cockburn of The Spectator indulges much speculation, and sure tosses around the epithet “Maoist” lightly.
If I were a betting man, I would wager that that The Spectator’s source is Sullivan himself.
If that’s the case, Sullivan should’ve stood up and said it himself publicly rather than leak it anonymously.
If he was contractually obligated to do otherwise, he should have thought that through before signing the contract, or should violate the contract and accept the consequences.
Easy to say from that rocking chair, eh Ken?
Least you didn’t accuse me of a Lay-Z-Boy BarcaLounger, GBH. 🙂
The Lay-Z-Boy with Magic Fingers™? A Florida invention.
Sully spent a lot of time this week tweeting about the difference between riots and protests, and complaining about lawless behavior. Also some stuff on the death rates of black men vs white men in police custody and complains about wokeness in the media. None of it likely to please woke editors.
I wonder if he might go back to an independent model – I still miss the Dish, but assume (and would understand) that he doesn’t want to goo to exactly that.
“sensitive junior editors”
I wonder what one of these look like, what breed of human is sensitive to selected insensitivity, do they have to read all manner of stuff that hurts them, do they cry a lot, are tissues provided? do they have a stamp with a bold BAN embossed on it, to smash the offending view with it.
Hold on… shoot the article, sensor the author, gag and contain,, run them outta town?
These buggers are myopic, arrogant wimps with knobs…
So… they are numbing agents not sensitive juniors’.
Ah, that’s better.
I think that there is an unusual amount of narrative unity (from anyone with even a hint of leaning left, from moderates to the far Left,) on this particular topic. Even those who almost ubiquitously play the role of devil’s advocate seem to have said “You know what, there’s no need to open your mouth about every single topic. I’ll sit this one out,” while almost every business entity, from Amazon to local tutors, are sending out statements regarding their support for the protestors, family, BLM, etc. I think this is why the column won’t be published, if it contained anything less than unqualified support.
I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I fear that no matter how just the cause, when you essentially have a debate-free zone, things can get out of hand quickly (for example, the idea that defunding or even abolishing the police now appears to be becoming mainstream pretty rapidly). On the other, much smarter people than I seem to back this approach, and as my intuitions failed me recently on Covid (I was in the “it will be a really nasty flu, people are overreacting” camp when I first heard about it in March and was taken completely off guard by the shutdowns,) at the moment I am more inclined than usual to follow their lead over my own intuitions. After this spring, I doubt myself more and am more inclined to think “Well, what the heck do I know?”. My intuitions say it could be dangerous if lack of debate means that people are able to push through ideas like abolishing the police – that the inevitable backlash would be much more authoritarian than what people were protesting in the first place. My observation of very smart people, however, makes me think that now is not really the time to harp on such worries, that it’s a time to simply listen to people who need to be heard and that debate about things like policy can come later. I really don’t know on this one.
I’m not sure that Kremlology is effective. But I’m fairly sure it’s just a stone throw from conspiracy theory.
Meanwhile: “these mass protests, in which many don’t wear masks, do run the risk of igniting hot spots of viral infection”.
As far as we know – the science on masks is weak – it’s not the absence of masks, it’s the absence of social distancing.
I’m glad you didn’t deep 6 my local paper, Professor. NYT – like any (lady?) friend – has its stupid moments but the science and internat’l sections are excellent. Just hold your nose on the woke stuff. I do.
As far as cockburn goes, I trust him and not bc he and his buddies published a lot of my articles in Counterpunch. Andrew Sullivan can be odious for sure, but he’s at least an ethical truth based journalist even if his personal opinions can stink. Credit where its due. D.A., J.D., Chelsea, NYC
I find some of the phrases / words used here such as: “bonfire of the liberals!”, “Maoists…marching through..media institutions”, “card has been marked”, “persona non grata”, “he’s been censored”, etc, a little overly melodramatic. Sullivan has a significant platform and a public voice (regardless of what the editors of the NYMag do), book deals, speaking engagements, etc. And of course as he should. And even though I don’t always agree with his politics, he is a good writer and I don’t begrudge him any of his success. But the sense of being victimised here is a little over the top?
I get to know some truly poor, oppressed and marginalised people (my description of them, not theirs) due to the work of a close friend. They are born in poverty, broken families, victims of abuse, suffering with disabilities and having no means or any public platform to get their views heard. And even then these people do not talk/feel like this about themselves and do not have this sense of exaggerated victimhood like Sullivan, the so-called “intellectual dark web” people, etc.
I actually have some serious misgivings about the spread of the virus myself during these protests and a thoughtful article expressing concern about these is essential and if the NYMag blocked it, then I don’t agree with them and they should be criticised for it. I wish Sullivan could tell us why he couldn’t publish (we know the reason why he cannot disclose though: the power of the bosses and workers not being in control of their own labour – but then Sullivan would condemn this as Marxism, etc – anyways that is besides the point). However at this time we don’t know why NYMag blocked the article. Given what Sullivan has been writing on his Twitter timeline for the last 2 days, it seems he might have had more on his mind than just making that point as has been implied here.