SFWA Fun And Games
Feb. 10th, 2014 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribSFWA member David Truesdale is circulating a petition against the appointment of an advisory board for the SFWA Bulletin. Theodore Beale, Professional Crank At Large, has taken up the cause with his usual tact and courtesy. My questions to Beale are posted below:
So every time the board of a newspaper overrides the editor of that newspaper it's a violation of the First Amendment? Every editor of every publication should have sole discretion as to what they publish?
Isn't, in this case, the Board the duly-appointed representatives of the membership that owns the publication? What recourse, if any, do the members have if their publication prints something they collectively disagree with?
What if the editor of a publication decides not to include something in their publication they have violated the author's First Amendment rights? There's no particular reason to expect say, Jerry Pournelle getting the gig.
More to the point, since when does the First Amendment apply to private organizations? SFWA is not Congress nor otherwise affiliated with government.
So every time the board of a newspaper overrides the editor of that newspaper it's a violation of the First Amendment? Every editor of every publication should have sole discretion as to what they publish?
Isn't, in this case, the Board the duly-appointed representatives of the membership that owns the publication? What recourse, if any, do the members have if their publication prints something they collectively disagree with?
What if the editor of a publication decides not to include something in their publication they have violated the author's First Amendment rights? There's no particular reason to expect say, Jerry Pournelle getting the gig.
More to the point, since when does the First Amendment apply to private organizations? SFWA is not Congress nor otherwise affiliated with government.
