Sixth and seventh newspapers drop Coulter -- editor of NC paper calls her CPAC comments “the last straw”

Media Matters for America has learned that two additional newspapers, The Sanford Herald of North Carolina and the Daily Chronicle of DeKalb, Illinois, have dropped right-wing pundit Ann Coulter's column following Coulter's appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where she referred to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards (NC) as a “faggot.” On March 8, Media Matters published a list of newspapers that carried Coulter's columns, as well as the email addresses of those papers' editors.

In an email to Media Matters, Herald editor Billy Liggett said that the paper “will no longer run Coulter's column effective Sunday, March 11,” and added, “The newspaper will run an explanation of its decision in that day's editorial.” Earlier, on the weblog The Horse's Mouth, Greg Sargent had reported that Liggett said “he received 834 emails today asking the paper to drop [Coulter].” Liggett told Sargent that Coulter's comments at CPAC “were kind of the last straw -- they sealed the deal as far as our decision goes.”

On March 9, the Daily Chronicle posted a statement on its website titled “Ann Coulter no longer welcome in the Chronicle,” also noted by The Horse's Mouth. The statement said Coulter's CPAC remarks were “wrong and hurtful and stepped way beyond the line of human decency, much less political commentary.” The statement went on to say that Coulter “could not or would not resist the temptation to offend, hurt and lash out at those voicing opinions that differed from her own” and that “not dealing” with Coulter's comments on the grounds that the comments did not run in the Chronicle “is a cop-out.”

As Editor & Publisher reported, the Lancaster New Era (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), The Oakland Press (Pontiac, Michigan), and The Mountain Press (Sevierville, Tennessee) dropped Coulter following her comments at CPAC. On March 8, Media Matters noted that The Times of Shreveport, Louisiana, also dropped Coulter. Times editor Alan English said in a statement that Coulter's CPAC remarks were “the back-breaking straw for a decision we've openly discussed for some time.”

Also on March 8, Media Matters received an email from the editor of the American Press of Lake Charles, Louisiana, reporting that the paper had dropped Coulter three days after her CPAC appearance, though he did not say whether Coulter was dropped as a result of her comments.