It’s called editing

Editing isn’t the strong suit of the Synthesis, but never was that more apparent than this week, when that paper ran a Q&A with former CN&R columnist Anthony Peyton Porter about losing his space in this newspaper. It was written under a pen name, and at no point did anyone bother to seek comment from me. Both chicken-shit moves.

So I’ll set the record straight here.

One of my jobs as editor is vetting stories for such things as invasion of privacy and libel. All of the CN&R’s editors keep an eye out for such circumstances, but I make the final determination.

I made that call a few months ago when I scrapped several pieces submitted by Porter, a longtime freelancer. The first one was about someone suffering from mental illness. The piece was flawed because it gave enough context to identify the private citizen he was referring to and the information could have harmed that person, both personally and professionally, for the rest of his life. Moreover, because it was a clear case of invasion of privacy, it was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The second one was about Sid Lewis, the Chico musician accused of masturbating in front of a teenage girl he’d hired to clean his house. But to a larger extent, it was about the girl, a minor and alleged sex-crime victim. It smacked of misogyny and victim-blaming. And I refused to print it because it would be ethically irresponsible to do so.

I didn’t reject Porter’s columns because his opinions varied from this newspaper’s. I rejected them because innocent people would’ve been adversely affected. That was made clear to Porter, but instead of writing about something else or editing his work, he basically gave me and the other editors the middle finger by crying censorship in a replacement column he submitted. I refused to print that, too. He printed it himself on his blog. And I showed him the door, as is my right as editor.

What Porter calls censorship, the CN&R calls responsible editing. In these particular cases, the people Porter wrote about deserved to be protected, and I stand by my decision to do so. I did give him the courtesy of saying goodbye to his readers and explaining his departure, which is why it’s ridiculous that he is now, according to that Q&A, charging that I wasn’t clear about why he was let go.

Nixing the column was a tough call. Porter has a long history with this paper and he’s written some thought-provoking pieces, including some especially touching ones about his beautiful late wife, Janice. And I like the guy. But he crossed the line and it’s clear to me that what he’s going for these days is a great departure from the mission of this newspaper. It’s my job to stay true to that.

As for the Synthesis, its editor, who really ought to look up some journalism fundamentals, took us to task for not printing the Sid Lewis piece. She said she thinks “there is value in running content that’s so on the edge.” Then why, I wonder, didn’t she print it?