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From: campbell@maynard.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Re: Press Censorship - really Cockburn
Message-ID: <12235887892.16.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Wed, 3-Sep-86 00:59:38 EDT
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Posted: Wed Sep  3 00:59:38 1986
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cramer@sun.com writes:

>Both Jeff Myers and Larry Campbell seem to have missed the rather
>elementary point that I tried to make regarding Alexander Cockburn.
>Cockburn, currently a columnist for the Nation (among other
>publications), was fired from his post at the Village Voice after it
>was discovered by his editor that Cockburn was under a $10,000
>contract with the Institute for Arab Studies.
> ...
>Now, what I was trying to suggest in my posting was that Mr. 
>Cockburn, who has written at length on the evil influence of filthy 
>capitalist lucre on the profession of journalism, may just be a bit 
>of a hypocrite.

Somehow I find it difficult to find any of this particularly evil.
Are socialists living and working in a capitalist country not allowed
to be paid?  Are they supposed to feel "hypocritical" for accepting
money?  Should Cockburn have refused to accept paychecks from the
Voice?  I am really confused here.  Which part of Cockburn's actions
was wrong?

    -   Accepting the money in the first place?
    -   Omitting to tell his editor about it?
    -   Failing to write the promised book?
    -   Or accepting money from greasy Arabs?

>Allow me to restate my point for the benefit of these gentlemen:
>Cockburn accepted a non-trivial sum of money, which he did not
>disclose to his editor, for doing "research" which was meant to end 
>in publication.  He has complained in the past of the pernicious 
>effect of money on American journalism.  He is a hypocrite.

Oh come now.  Somehow we are expected to believe that accepting money
from a cause WITH WHICH COCKBURN IS ALREADY IDENTIFIED is going to
sway or influence him "perniciously", and that this is hence evil.  I
can't find anything more insidious than procrastination in Cockburn's
actions.

Now, if the money was from The Heritage Foundation, or the Jewish
Defense League, or the Cato Institute, that would be pernicious...

Interestingly, I first heard of Cockburn in Alan Lupo's series of
articles in The Boston Phoenix a few years back.  I remember thinking
at the time, "What's Lupo so exercised about?  So he never got around
to writing a book.  What's the big deal?  Lupo must have some kind of
grudge here or something."  Later, when Cockburn began writing for The
Nation (to which I was already a subscriber), I discovered that (1)
he's a superb writer, and (2) he's pro-Palestinian, which explains why
Lupo would foam at the mouth about him.
-- 
Larry Campbell                         The Boston Software Works, Inc.
ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA  120 Fulton Street, Boston MA
UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell     (617) 367-6846

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