Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

CENSORSHIP? (2/10)

During the Reformation, the Church censored what it didn't like by putting any book it thought ordinary people ought not to read on the "Index." Nowadays, despite the freedoms of the internet and the first amendment, The Arizona Republic exerts the same discretionary powers to preclude ideas the editors think alien to its readership. Decisions about what to exclude or include are presumably made at the editorial level. Since the newspaper's economic future is cloudy with readership and advertising revenues declining, this is understandable. The editors do their best to follow the political winds wherever they blow. Certain subjects are consigned to the "only in extremis" basket. Mentioning the lives and names of the dead from COVID-19 is one. How other countries have successfully countered the pandemic is another and with 4,000 dead the failure of our leadership is only hinted at. Looming environmental disaster from global warming is on the back burner. Systemic racism in housing and education and employment are hinted at but for the sake of its white readership not given any prominence. Healthcare costs higher than any country on earth. To their credit the paper has finally acknowledged the stupidity of Republican representatives who have problems with the legality of the election. The failure of our healthcare system, how elected representatives made fortunes by supporting charter schools, the teaching of a distorted version of Arizona history and how undemocratic and arcane the system of selecting candidates for office, all are of marginal interest to the editors to judge from recent coverage. Given that we have just changed our government, perhaps it is time for the same winds of change to be blowing through the ranks of the editorial board. We need new, younger Captains in charge of the helm, who can weather the storms ahead and are more in tune with the lives of the majority of Arizonans and global issues and who, hopefully will protect and preserve the beautiful state we all so love. They might even increase readership.