Newspaper Drops Ann Coulter Column

A conservative newspaper in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has dropped Ann Coulter's column, becoming the first paper to take that action since controversy began swirling around the author of the runaway best seller "Godless, the Church of Liberalism."

Neither recent, now-disproved charges of plagiarism nor her controversial book played any part in the paper's decision, the paper's editorial page editor told NewsMax.com.

Coulter says that's nonsense.

"When the entire liberal establishment is out to destroy me, a newspaper does not drop my column just [because] of a rotation policy," Coulter told NewsMax.

According to the July 12 edition of Editor & Publisher (E&P), The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, where her column has appeared for about 14 months, has replaced Coulter with NewsMax.com columnist David Limbaugh, a close friend of Coulter's.

E&P has published a spate of columns attacking Coulter.

Wrote E&P: "Ann Coulter is no stranger to controversy, but her latest adventures have several newspapers questioning whether carrying her syndicated column is worth the trouble. The Shreveport [La.] Times is currently leaving the decision of whether or not to keep Coulter up to its readers. But the first newspaper to officially drop Coulter’s column since the latest uproar began seems to be The Gazette of Cedar Rapids."

Doug Neumann, editorial page editor of the Gazette, expressed puzzlement over why E&P had sought him out about the Coulter matter.

"They called me," he told NewsMax, explaining that he didn't know how E&P, a Coulter critic, knew he had dropped her.

"There have been some complaints about dropping her," he said. "We change columnists all the time - we tweak the lineup to give readers something a little different. Taking Coulter out of the paper [brought about] complaints . . . generally readers call in and say 'I was a big fan of Coulter and they say you are suppressing conservative opinion.'

"I remind them that we are a very conservative newspaper and have always been known as that and I also remind them that we've got David Limbaugh and Jonah Goldberg and Kathleen Parker and very few papers in Iowa have that kind of collection of conservative columnists.

"We made the decision to drop her before the plagiarism charges ever even came to light and not directly at all because of the book - indirectly perhaps because of the book - because ultimately we've always faced a barrage of criticism from liberals about carrying Coulter. No big deal - you'd expect that. Part of what we do as opinion page editors is to take that kind of criticism - that never fazes us at all," he explained.

"When we began talking about whether there might be another conservative voice that would work well on our page was really when we got several calls from conservatives who were angry about some passages of her book and were questioning whether she was in Sync with all of their views and also pointing out that she's not the only columnist out there that represents an extremely conservative point of view.

"So that's when we started looking at a change - not directly because of the book, definitely not because of the plagiarism charges, but because of complaints from conservative readers and also just an opportunity of showing a new voice on the page. I hope nobody overblows it into anything more than that."