USA Today Censors Coulter's Coverage of Democratic Convention

By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
July 27, 2004

Conservative columnist and author Ann Coulter, who was hired by the USA Today newspaper staff to provide daily insights on the Democratic National Convention in Boston this week, had her first story censored for "editorial differences."

After filing her first story with USA Today on Sunday night, the editorial staff for the largest circulated newspaper in the nation decided that Coulter's piece was "unusable" and "not funny," according to The Drudge Report.

Coulter questioned whether USA Today had ever read any of her writings before hiring her to cover the Democratic coronation of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) this week.

"Apparently no one at USA Today had ever read Ann Coulter before!" Coulter exclaimed in Boston, according to Drudge.

"Apparently, USA Today doesn't like my 'tone,' humor, sarcasm, etc. etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them in the first place. Perhaps they thought they were getting Catherine Coulter," she added to Human Events, referring to the famous suspense, thriller, romance fiction author.

Noting that USA Today also hired anti-Bush liberal producer Michael Moore to cover next month's Republican National Convention in New York, Coulter remarked to Human Events, "My guess is they will 'get' his humor."

As for the forbidden column, Coulter provided the notes from USA Today explaining why they nixed it.

"Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do," Coulter's banned column begins. "My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazoned with the 'F-word' are my opponents. Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their eye-rolling."

USA Today inquired, "Eye-rolling? At what?"

The next paragraph from Coulter reads, "Democrats are constantly suing and slandering police as violent, fascist racists -- with the exception of Boston's police, who'll be lauded as national heroes right up until the Democrats pack up and leave town on Friday, whereupon they'll revert to their natural state of being fascist, racist pigs."

Again, USA Today asked, "What Democrats sue the police? But they won't actually revert to being fascist pigs, don't you mean the Dems will think they have reverted to being fascist pigs?"

Coulter's sarcasm about civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who is speaking at the Democratic Convention, and his shenanigans with police simply confounded USA Today editors.

"So it's a real mystery why cops wouldn't like Democrats," Coulter stated after pointing out Sharpton's experience with the police.

"Is that last sentence sarcastic? If so, you sure lost me," USA Today expressed.

Over the next few paragraphs where Coulter describes Democratic women and "nuts," USA Today described it as, "Not funny, I don't get it."

Finally, Coulter offered her final shot at Democrats at the end of her column when she asked Americans to "get a good long look at the French Party" this week.

USA Today's response was, "What do you mean by 'The French Party'? I don't get it."

When asked about the censorship of Coulter's writing, USA Today Executive Editor Brian Gallagher told Human Events that it simply had a "difference of opinion over editing -- words, voice, that sort of thing."

Gallagher added that the severance of the relationship between USA Today and Coulter was a "mutual decision -- in the end."

When asked why Coulter was selected by USA Today, Gallagher told Human Events that "she was a voice from the other side with standing and visibility."

He admitted the editorial staff was shocked by Coulter's first column and deemed it too "difficult" to edit before publishing.

Gallagher contended he was not censoring Coulter, but rather decided it was best to make a change based on "editorial differences."

Another conservative columnist, Jonah Goldberg from the National Review, has been chosen to replace Coulter for the remainder of the week to provide Democratic Convention coverage for USA Today.