'New York Times' Editor: 'We Owed It To Our Readers' To Call Trump Claims Lies; NPR, 9/22/16

NPR Staff, NPR; 'New York Times' Editor: 'We Owed It To Our Readers' To Call Trump Claims Lies:

"The Times is using that word "lie" often in its coverage of Donald Trump, and Dean Baquet, the paper's executive editor, explains why on NPR's Morning Edition.

Interview Highlights

Has something changed in the way the paper covers and writes about Trump?

Yes, the simple answer is yes. Politicians often exaggerate their records, obfuscate, say they did something great when it wasn't so great. I think in the last few weeks, he's sort of crossed a little bit of a line where he's actually said things – I think the moment for me was the birther story, where he has repeated for years his belief that President Obama was not born in the United States. [Editor's note: On Friday, Trump reversed that claim and said Obama was born in the U.S.] That's not an obfuscation, that's not an exaggeration. I think that was just demonstrably a lie, and I think that lie is not a word that newspapers use comfortably...

NPR has taken a different approach and has not used the word "lie" in its coverage of Trump. In a post Mike Oreskes, NPR senior vice president for news, explains that NPR should give "citizens the information they need to make the choices that democracy asks them to make. We should not be telling you how to think. We should give you the information to decide what you think."...

Has the paper used the word "lie" in reference to Hillary Clinton much?

I don't think Hillary Clinton, to be honest, has crossed the line the way Donald Trump did with the birther issue."

The Blog That Disappeared; New York Times, 7/29/16

Roxane Gay, New York Times; The Blog That Disappeared:

"On June 27, Mr. Cooper’s Google account was deactivated, he has said. He lost 14 years of his blog archives, creative work, email and contacts. He has hired a lawyer and made complaints, and many of his readers and fans have tried to support his efforts. There is a petition circulating, urging Google to restore his work. Pen America, an organization that promotes free expression, has weighed in, saying that Mr. Cooper deserves a substantive response from Google.

Thus far, these efforts have been in vain. Google has not responded beyond saying there was a violation of the Terms of Service agreement. It has neither identified the specific violation nor indicated why it also deleted Mr. Cooper’s email account. It has not provided Mr. Cooper with the ability to download his personal information so he might rebuild his blog and email account elsewhere. In one interview, Mr. Cooper said he thought that the male escort ads might have led to his account’s being deactivated, but this has not been confirmed by the company.

When I contacted Google for further comment, I got a response that said, “We are aware of this matter, but the specific Terms of Service violations are ones we cannot discuss further due to legal considerations.” I asked about why Mr. Cooper’s Gmail account was also deleted and whether or not he would be able to retrieve the archive of his work, and I was directed to Google’s Terms of Service, Gmail Policy and Blogger Content Policy, which did not offer any useful specifics."

Hong Kong book fair subdued after bookseller disappearances; Guardian, 7/25/16

Ilaria Maria Sala. Guardian; Hong Kong book fair subdued after bookseller disappearances:

"The controls on travellers have been strengthened, and many who came to Hong Kong to buy books censored in mainland China have stopped buying them, as they may get into trouble at the border.”...

What has befallen the five booksellers has cast a heavy pall across the industry in Hong Kong. “We now have problems at both ends of the book chain”, says Bao Pu, of New Century Press, a publishing house known for high-quality political works banned on the mainland. “Printers are not willing to print politically sensitive books, throughout the Hong Kong printing industry. This is a very serious situation. The printers are deciding what can be read. At the other end of the chain there are the bookstores, and most of them will no longer sell this kind of book because it is considered dangerous.

“Also, you see fewer political books because in this situation, we publish less. I think that Hong Kong is no longer a place that supports independent publishing, since the Causeway Bay Books event [when Gui Minhai was arrested].”"

Cassandra Clare Created a Fantasy Realm and Aims to Maintain Her Rule; New York Times, 4/23/16

Penelope Green, New York Times; Cassandra Clare Created a Fantasy Realm and Aims to Maintain Her Rule:

"The place Ms. Clare occupies in publishing — and the work she does to keep herself there — is emblematic of the burdens and boons fan culture bestows on so many fantasy authors. Deeply possessive of the characters Ms. Clare has created, the fans can turn on her for plot directions they don’t approve of, or for the ways in which the television show diverges from the books. (Ms. Clare has no role in the TV series.)

Fantitlement, as this phenomenon is known, has raised her fortunes while at times it has bedeviled her, as it has so many of her peers. Laura Miller, a books and culture columnist at Slate who has written about fan culture, likened Ms. Clare’s experiences to that of George R. R. Martin, the “Game of Thrones” author whose fans grew so angry at his publishing pace that some created a blog, “Finish the Book, George.”"

ALA Releases State of America’s Libraries Report 2016 (Includes List of Most Challenged Books of 2015); Library Journal, 4/11/16

Gary Price, Library Journal; ALA Releases State of America’s Libraries Report 2016 (Includes List of Most Challenged Books of 2015) :

"Out of 275 challenges recorded by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom, the “Top Ten Most Challenged Books in 2015” are:

Looking for Alaska, by John Green Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).

I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).

The Holy Bible Reasons: Religious viewpoint.

Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).

Habibi, by Craig Thompson Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.

Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.

Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”)."