Being a daily writer, I am always on the lookout for something of note
to write about. It is great to have
things that I am grateful for. Another
aspect of gratitude is for things to avoid.
It would be too easy/common to write about not having famine, pestilence
and war. Occasionally somebody pops up
with Darwin Award level stupidity. Here
is today’s candidate.
Official's threat to keep name out of print backfires badly
Kirby Delauter might need to rethink his strategy for keeping his name
out of print.
By DAVID DISHNEAU
Associated Press
Kirby Delauter might need to rethink his strategy for keeping his name
out of print.
The Frederick County, Maryland, councilman's name was published Tuesday
in newspapers, websites, news and opinion blogs and seemingly every corner of
the Internet after he threatened to sue his local newspaper if it dared to
publish his name without his permission.
"Use my name again unauthorized and you'll be paying for an
attorney," the Republican official told a Frederick News-Post reporter in
a Facebook post.
The paper responded by ridiculing his demand.
"I just don't know how to respond to a request that stupid,"
Terry Headlee, managing editor of the 33,000 daily circulation newspaper, told
The Associated Press on Tuesday in a telephone interview.
The News-Post did respond by posting an advance look at its Sunday
editorial on the newspaper's website. It pointed out that Delauter's demand
ignores, among other things, the First Amendment right of a free press.
But the newspaper could not resist mining the rich opportunities for
sarcasm that Delauter's demand offered.
There was the editorial's headline: "Kirby Delauter, Kirby
Delauter, Kirby Delauter."
And the body of the editorial, describing the laughter that his demand
provoked and exploring the ways The News-Post might henceforth refer to
Delauter without using his name. Perhaps "K---- D-------." Or
"Councilman (Unauthorized)."
Capping it off, the first letter of each paragraph spelled out:
K-I-R-B-Y-D-E-L-A-U-T-E-R.
Mocking messages filled Twitter with the hashtag #kirbydelauter, which
was trending among the top 10 most popular subjects in the U.S. on Tuesday
evening.
A Google search for the name Kirby Delauter on Tuesday evening turned
up more than 37,000 results.
Delauter, a general contractor, didn't respond to telephone and email
messages from The Associated Press.
News-Post county government reporter Bethany Rodgers -- the subject of
Delauter's ire -- tweeted that the councilman didn't mention his sudden notoriety
during opening comments at a council meeting Tuesday.
Delauter had objected to a recent story by Rodgers that said Delauter
shared another councilman's concern about a shortage of reserved parking spaces
for councilmembers at the county office building. Delauter wrote in his
Facebook post that he had refused to be interviewed for the story because
Rodgers had misrepresented his comments in the past.
This isn't the first time Delauter's quick temper and belligerent style
have brought him unflattering attention during his four years as a county
official. He stormed out of a board meeting in 2012 after telling a county
staff member, "I'm not going to sit here and be talked to like some punk
because I'm asking questions." Rodgers reported last year that Delauter
called another board member a "moron" for disagreeing with him on an
issue.
Headlee said it's the newspaper's job to hold elected officials
accountable by name for their words and deeds.
"If he doesn't want to be held accountable, he
needs to seriously consider whether he's cut out to serve the public,"
Headlee said.
Even if Delauter does sue, a lawsuit wouldn't likely go far.
Washington Post blogger Eugene Volokh, who teaches free speech law at
the University of California in Los Angeles, wrote online Tuesday: "In our
country, newspapers are actually allowed to write about elected officials (and
others) without their permission."
+ + +
I am grateful that I and my local political representatives have a much
better grasp of trying to censor the internet Kirby Delauter. This is a grand
example of the “
Streisand
Effect”
