From Brad DeLong, we read:
FYI Blog: The Ban on `Rubbish’ in The New York Times : By Brian Akre
GM Corporate Communications
I’ve spent much of the past week trying to get a letter to the editor published in The New York Times in response to the recent Tom Friedman rant (archived here) against GM
Ah yes, the same petulant GM who pulled all advertising from the LA Times because they didn't like a bad car review (also see here). I don't know how many millions GM spends at the NYT on advertising (probably quite a few), but since when does that mean you get the “right” to get a published letter to the editor? The Times hasn't seen fit to publish any of my letters either.
Really doesn't have anything to do with the ability to publish...it's the fact that they wanted to strip the letter of all meaning. And this is in response to a column that basically said GM is a crack dealer and represents all that is wrong in the world today.
Perhaps if they had used the same editorial restraint on their own columnist as they do on letters that come into their newsroom from outside sources, the situation would have been avoided.
Rubbish, indeed.
The NYT often makes errors of fact and prints inflammatory columns (see Safire's collection of Clinton era rubbish for instance), without ever printing corrections, I don't see why GM has more rights than other offended parties.
Granted, the whole point of letters to the editor is the words are supposed to be written by the signed author, and not the editor, so that's pretty lame by the NYT.
Also, to be honest, I think the point of Friedman's column about GM being addicted to oil was fairly on point. Why would GM subsidize the purchase of an H2 anyway?