Lipscomb: It Didn't Begin With Google

Many of you may know Thomas Lipscomb as the intrepid reporter who in 2004 almost single-handedly, and without outside resources, did what the rest of the mainstream media were too lazy or biased to do: expose several of Presidential candidate John Kerry’s exaggerations and lies regarding his military record.

Lipscomb and I have joked, ruefully, that any competent reporter could have done much the same, and more with the resources of mainstream journalism behind him or her. The information was pretty much right out there to be found or volunteered by those who knew. But, mainstream journalism turned its back on the truth.

Lipscomb’s long-time involvement with publishing and journalism did not begin in 2004, but many years before. Thomas Lipscomb was the founding president of Times Books, the general book publisher owned by an earlier generation at The New York Times, and is a senior fellow of the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California.

On January 24 I posted “Google Gags Tiananmen Square Massacre” Immediately after, Lipscomb emailed me:

"I couldn’t agree more… I marched Times Books out of the Moscow Book Fair when the KGB started picking up “culturally unacceptable” books off the Schoken Books table next to us.. and explained that American publishers who wanted the protection of the First Amendment at home… insisted on it at overseas Book Convention… did an editorial in the NYT… and went on the Today Show… I caused a TERRIBLE stink. One of my less brilliant career moves… I took on the industry assoc…. THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PUBLISHERS for being too gutless to protest"

I asked Lipscomb to elaborate. Today he did, with “The Real Cost of Google’s Sell-Out To China” in journalism’s main trade paper Editor & Publisher.

Lipscomb points out that Google’s market capitalization is alone double that of the entire U.S. newspaper industry, hardly a corporate lightweight. Lipscomb explains how Google has jettisoned freedom of speech for potential profits in China.

“Google has been badly hampered by the filters placed on access to it by the Chinese government. They slow its search speeds to a crawl, make it undependable, and would keep Google at a competitive commercial disadvantage unless it complied with China’s demands.”

Lipscomb continues:

“Thanks to its search technology governments no longer have to censor book by book or publication by publication. They can censor an entire universal library instantly with terrifying efficiency. Google has already announced its intention to create just such a library…Many are concerned concerned that the concentration of media that has taken place in the past decade has made the few giant companies that now control them more vulnerable to compliance demands from foreign and domestic governments with their own agenda. And American media companies have been tempted to jettison their standards before in order to gain entry to a major market in a totalitarian state.”

Lipscomb then retells the doings at the Moscow Book Fair

“Some years ago, as the Soviet Union was headed for its demise, a Moscow Book Fair was announced and publishers in the United States and throughout the world flocked to gain access to a huge potential new market. The Soviets promised an open market at the Fair to display what publishers felt were their best books most suited to the market. But as soon as the Fair opened, Soviet police moved in on publishers and confiscated books they felt might “feed agitation.”

”Other publishers, fearing this kind of action, had already self-censored the books they displayed or quickly removed them on the spot. Times Books, the general book publisher owned by the New York Times Company, immediately withdrew from the Fair arguing that it was difficult to maintain First Amendment standards in the United States while conceding them elsewhere. A lively debate ensued, and the Moscow Book Fair was seriously diminished as a market place thereafter.”

Lipscomb concludes:

“ Isn’t it time Americans and their elected representatives pay more attention to their own cherished freedoms? Aren’t the giant keiretsu companies that control American media too willing to suspend them wherever they interfere with their pursuit of profit?”