“Lance is busy drumming up support—and publicity—for the book. He’s holding a press conference on the 16th, when he’ll be flanked by lefty anti-censorship activist librarian Ann Sparanese and the lawyer played by John Travolta in A Civil Action, Jan Schlichtmann. The truth is, this may be the best thing that ever happened to Lance. “That’s the ultimate irony,” Lance says. “It wasn’t reviewed by a single U.S. publication. If Patrick Fitzgerald had not attempted to kill it, it would have just gone off into publishing obscurity. This is the true lesson of censorship.”
–Prosecutor As Book Publicist. Was Fitzgerald libeled?
Ann Sparanese has sent the following message to the SRRT and PLG discussion lists:
Mon, 15 Jun 2009
Colleagues,
A week or so ago, I brought to your attention an issue concerning Triple Cross by Peter Lance, and alerted you to the efforts by arguably the most powerful U.S. Attorney in the country, Patrick Fitzgerald, to censor it. Since there there has been a little more press on it, I am hoping you would glance at the following links.
In 2001, librarians were “all over” HarperCollins because the
publisher intended to pulp Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men. Moore credits librarians — actually they were librarians from these two lists! [SRRT List
This time, with Lance’s book, HarperCollins is so
far standing firm against the demands of the U.S. Attorney who — even though he is doing this as a “private” person — obviously brings the weight of his high office to bear. Is this not even more chilling than a publisher censoring itself? Can’t we now give HarperCollins some support, as librarians, for standing up to pressure from someone in government to kill a book?
Maybe some of you have doubts about the contents of Lance’s book. I haven’t read every page, or have thought about every argument he makes. None of us can independently confirm the correctness of his conclusions, or whether his interpretation of the facts is the only one. Clearly there are some conclusions that do not please Mr. Fitzgerald. But this is beside the point. The point is that not only is Lance a reputable journalist, but HarperCollins is a large mainstream publisher with no interest,presumably, in publishing libel, defamation and baseless conspiracy theories. The publisher was sufficiently shook up by Fitzgerald’s concerns to take a very long, second look at the book, and to change a few things, but to fundamentally come to the same conclusion: there is no reason to
withdraw the book. It is scheduled to come out tomorrow.
Links follow.
Thanks for reading this,
Ann Sparanese
***
Newsweek:
Chicago Sun Times
Library Juice Press Blog
[see especially comments including those by Cynthia Kouril, Peter Lance].
[for more on the role of "Libraries and Information Workers in Conflict
Situations" including A.S. see Information for Social Change Number 25.Summer 2007.]
==========
additional: Raw Story
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/12/fitzgerald-trying-to-censor-explosi
ve-911-tale/ WorldNetDaily
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=100764
Reporters Committee For Freedom Of The Press
http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=10830
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rory-oconnor/patrick-fitzgeralds-priva_b_213
807.html
Accuracy in Media
http://www.aim.org/guest-column/abuse-of-power-backfire
Gotham City Insider blog
http://www.gothamcityinsider.com/
American Bar Association Journal
http://www.abajournal.com/news/chicago_us_atty._says_book_partly_blames_hi
m_for_sept._11_threatens_suit/