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'Union-Tribune'
Vet Goldsborough Quits After Column Is Spiked
This unhappy news was posted this morning by Editor & Publisher, a journal covering the newspaper industry. You can contact James Goldsborough at jim.goldsborough@uniontrib.com. Letters to the UT Editor can be sent to letters@uniontrib.com The UT's "Reader's Representative" receives email at readers.rep@uniontrib.com and calls at (619) 293-1525. Please make your opinions known to the UT.
Elissa, for Peace and Democracy Action Group
PS An index of James Goldsborough's articles can be found here (12/2/04):
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/goldsborough/index.html'Union-Tribune' Vet Goldsborough Quits After Column Is Spiked
By Mark Fitzgerald
Published: December 01, 2004 5:15 PM ET
CHICAGO Longtime San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune columnist Jim Goldsborough is quitting the paper, saying Publisher David C. Copley abruptly pulled a column scheduled to run Monday as "payback" for his criticism of President Bush.
Goldsborough said the reason he was given after the fact is that the column, about why Jewish voters overwhelmingly cast their presidential ballots for John Kerry, was "offensive."
"The publisher said it might be offensive. To whom? That's the question The column is not offensive to Jews. Maybe to Bush," Goldsborough said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "I don't think I'm 'liberal,' but I'm certainly not pro-Bush, and I think this was payback."
Goldsborough, 66, came to San Diego 14 years ago as editorial page editor of the San Diego Tribune. When the two San Diego Copley papers were merged into the Union-Tribune in 1992, he began writing the column.
"I've written columns for everybody. I've been edited, criticized. ∑ But never have I gotten a call Sunday night that the column is not running Monday, and there's no discussion," he said. "The editor explained to me publishers have that right, but it's never happened to me. This sort of came like a bolt from Olympus."
The spike of the column was "almost like prior restraint," Goldsborough said. "Don't criticize Bush, or you column won't be run."
He wrote his resignation letter Monday, Goldsborough said. "If the publisher has the notion that he can do this, well, we know where things stand," he said.
However he describes himself, Goldsborough's columns were often at odds with the conservative Republican stance taken on the editorial page. The op-ed page, he said, has been a "good balance" of political views. "Now the balance is tilted back in one direction, which is what I think the publisher wants to do," he said.
A call to Copley's office was directed to Harold W. "Hal" Fuson Jr., vice president and general counsel for The Copley Press Inc. Fuson did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Goldsborough is a former associate editor of the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News and for 12 years was a European correspondent for the International Herald Tribune. He said he has some writing projects to occupy himself, and has already been offered a spot on a daily online newspaper, Voice of San Diego.
Though San Diego was long regarded as a Republican bastion, Goldsborough noted that Democrat John Kerry carried the city. "The newspaper's a little out of step with the new San Diego, and that's why the community has appreciated my column," he said. "My own e-mail is five to one for my column. The newsroom prefers to run the
that are critical, but that's not the community's view."
Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P's editor-at-large.
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