[Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia goes on strike

[Theo10011]

Hi Mike

On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 10:18 PM, Mike Godwin <mnemonic at gmail.com> wrote:

> 'I'm entirely comfortable with The New York Times Company (a
> corporation) and its efforts to influence the outcome of elections
> (e.g., through candidate endorsements). And I wouldn't want to
> prohibit The New York Times Company from political speech regarding
> legislation or policy.'


There's 2 things here, perhaps you are choosing an odd example here, a very
well-reputed newspaper without demarcating it with the corporation that
owns and publishes it. I believe the New York Times's editorial board has
been making endorsements of political candidates since 1850, starting with
Abraham Lincoln[1]. As far as I know, it is the newspaper and an editorial
board that made that endorsement, not the corporation.

But anyway, whether you are comfortable or not with The New York times
Company influencing the outcome of an election, might be colored by your
political leanings. The same analogy could be used for Fox News for
example, though I'm not sure how comfortable that would make everyone else.

I suppose there is another argument to be made here, about Media
endorsements on its own and unregulated money being used to buy Media and
such endorsements, but I shall leave that out for now.

Regards
Theo

[1]
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/23/opinion/20081024-endorse.html