Today's NPR On the Media story (streaming audio or transcript here) on the Chicago Tribune's 10/26 censorship of Lisa Bertagnoli's piece on semantic bleaching of the C-word:
It begins with C, rhymes with grunt, and refers to female anatomy. And its origins and usage were the subject of a freelancer’s story in the Chicago Tribune last week. But when editors decided that the story shouldn’t run after all, it was already too late, and staffers had to remove an entire section from hundreds of thousands of newspapers by hand. The word never actually appeared in the story, nor will you hear it in this one, from Chicago Public Radio's Diantha Parker.
Other links: Bertagnoli's blurb at her agent's site; Chicago Sun-Times story, Romanesko blog entry, Ms. Magazine blog entries (here, here), Michael Miner's description of his TV panel discussion of the controversy, in which he points out the very different reaction to what Jon Stewart's famous take-down of Tucker Carlson: "You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."; the 355 cunts at the Guardian. A few more random blog entries: Hi Res : Wide Screen, The Lincoln Plawg, feministing.com.
I haven't been able to find a copy of Bertagnoli's original article, although apparently some copies leaked out, and the Ms. blog explicitly asks for one. My faith in the power of the blogosphere is shaken.
Posted by Mark Liberman at November 7, 2004 12:42 PM