It Depends On What the Meaning of “Is” Is
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006A few days ago, I noted thatTommy Denton Confirms That He’s A Liar. I also emailed a copy of the post to Mr. Denton, and received a reply from the Editor of the Roanoke Times (Mr. Denton is the Editorial Page Editor). Here is the reply:
Dear Mr. Hall:
Many apologies for this belated response, but I’m responding, instead of Tommy Denton, to your email about the Kanye West depiction, because it appeared on our news pages, which I oversee. So Tommy Denton, who oversees our editorial pages, cannot be held liable for it, nor should he be accused of lying.
In the news department, we had made the same decision, but, unfortunately, had not fully promulgated it. So the Kanye West illustration ended up running without having the proper conversations occur. I regret that we did not do a better job of handling the matter.
That said, I think that the article made some salient points, which I gather you appreciated, and helped put some context around the illustration.
Many thanks for sending along your feedback.
Sincerely,
Mike Riley
No letters to the editor have been published regarding the distinction between publishing denigrating Muhammad images on the editorial pages and publishing denigrating Christ images on the Religion pages. Perhaps no one else even noticed, but I think it’s just as likely that “The Roanoke Times has determined that, in its editorial judgment, those letters were inappropriate for this newspaper.” We’ll probably never know.
