The Extreme Rocketry Article NAR Did Not Want You To Read & Censored !!
Submitted for publication on Dec. 8, 2002 to Extreme Rocketry magazine at their request. Censored from publication on Dec. 12, 2002 by Mark B. Bundick, President of NAR.
I posted this information to my rocket club mailing list and these two interesting bits of information popped up
Fehskens, Len wrote:Once more with feeling: the NAR did not "censor" this article. NAR counsel
advised the NAR President that they thought publication of the article was
inadvisable in the current litigation climate. The NAR President
communicated this opinion to the publisher of Extreme Rocketry. The
publisher agreed.
Tha NAR has no authority whatsoever over the publisher of Extreme Rocketry.
len.
"Censor" has a range of meanings, and what the publishers and editors did in this case qualifies as a form of censorship. (Check nearly any dictionary for this range of meanings.)
There is the "only government can censor" meaning of "censor": official censors who decide what may and what may not be published.
There is, at the other end of the spectrum, the self-censorship any of us may sometimes exhibit.
In between, there is the "censorship" of a corporation not allowing an employee to publish something, or even to speak publicly.
And a magazine deciding not to publish something because it might "aid the Evil Ones" or "offend the Pentagon," etc., is certainly doing a form of censorship. Especially when they mention "litigation climate" in the context of Homeland Security.
It would be like "The Progressive" opting not to publish the H-bomb plans because of the "current litigation climate." Or "The Baghdad Daily" opting not to publish an expose of President Hussein because of "the current litigation climate."
It is correct in all of these cases to say a speaker or writer was censored.
(Note that I am not at all disputing the right of a corporation or publisher or owner of a printing press to decide what to publish. Just using a perfectly descriptive word.)
--Tim May
