I rarely leave comments on the New York Times' blogs because they pre-moderate the comments and very few of mine have been approved. Whether the comments contain a link or not, they tend to point out how the author is wrong or isn't telling the whole truth, and in NYT land that's a no-no.

So it was on Thursday's "CNN’s Special on Latinos Stirs Protests Against Anchor" (link) by Brian Stelter. Readers of that post might assume that Isabel Garcia is just a "civil rights lawyer"; all he told his readers about her is at [1]. In fact, she's a very strong supporter of illegal immigration who, despite being the Public Defender of Pima County, Arizona, carried the head of a Joe Arpaio effigy around like a trophy at a protest. Her group (Derechos Humanos), at least as of 2006, was directly collaborating with the Mexican government. To help the NYT's readers out, I left the following brief comment, a comment that has not been approved two days later:

Now, here's what you won't read from the NYT or hear from CNN about Ms. Garcia:

24ahead.com/blog/archives/007816.html

Links are certainly allowed in comments, at least for some people. See the examples at [2]. So, it's not the link, it's the content. And, while it's not known who didn't approve the comment, the post has Brian Steltzer's name at the top, so he's at least partially responsible.

[1] From the NYT post:

Isabel Garcia, a civil rights lawyer who was featured in the documentary and organized a protest against Mr. Dobbs in Tucson on Wednesday, said that she felt censored by CNN after the channel edited her comments about the anchor out of an interview.

She had anticipated a 15-minute conversation about immigration opposite the Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, a staunch believer in immigration enforcement, on the prime-time program “Anderson Cooper 360.”

During the taped interview on Wednesday, she said that she made several unprompted comments about Mr. Dobbs.

She said she called Mr. Arpaio and Mr. Dobbs “the two most dangerous men to our communities,” and added that “because of them, our communities are being terrorized in a real way.” She also asserted that CNN was “promoting lies and hate about our community” by broadcasting Mr. Dobbs’s program. The comments were not included when the interview was broadcast.

[2] There are links in comments here, all preceded by mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com:
/2009/10/22/question-time-broadcast-sparks-protests-at-bbc
/2009/10/21/publishers-will-delay-electronic-editions-of-major-titles
/2009/10/19/times-says-it-will-cut-100-newsroom-jobs/?apage=2#comments