The New Yorker carries an article by Jane Mayer about the after-effects of the PBS "Park Avenue" documentary I wrote about back in November. The New Yorker article expresses concern that there will be a "chilling effect" or "censorship" of PBS's coverage of Koch Industries or of David Koch.
This is almost comical, given the surfeit of coverage of Koch, the Koch brothers, and their political and philanthropic activities. One can hardly pick up the New York Times or the New Yorker or the Nation or click on the Huffington Post without enduring some long geschrei about the Koch brothers. If there has been a chilling effect or censorship, it's difficult to detect.
What the New Yorker article is actually about isn't an attempt to halt critical coverage of the Koch brothers; it's about the idea that David Koch himself, or the taxpayers, should be forced to pay for such coverage. That's a highly questionable proposition. If the New Yorker editors and reporters have difficulty understanding that, they might imagine trying to go ask, say, Si Newhouse for money to pay for an article that viciously attacks him and his children.
