🚀 go-pugleaf

The last Musea club message was an e-mail to, and a response from,
Jerome Weeks,
the book reviewer for the Dallas Morning News. It challenged him to be
fair in his coverage and consider reviewing indie publications.

One of my readers, McGinnis' from the
ULA, Underground Literary Alliance, followed up with his own letter to
Weeks
suggesting some indie publications worthy of reviews.

Weeks responded with a clear message. No indie publication will ever
get reviewed in his or any major  newspaper or national magazine
because of legal fears.
I think this ban of small publishers is against fair trade and against
the law.
Here is Weeks response to McGinnis. What are your thoughts?
___________
Mr. McGinnis:
I'm sorry, but it's the policy of The Dallas Morning News -- and every
major
daily newspaper I know of, every national magazine -- not to review
self-published or print-on-demand books. It's out of my hands. Our
legal
department has advised strongly against it.
This is why: If we print a review of a book that has libelous material
in
it, we open ourselves to a lawsuit -- we helped spread the libel. If
that
book comes from an established publisher, it has been vetted by their
legal
department, so such a likelihood is considerably lessened. Even if a
possible libel gets through, their vetting process is our defense. We
can't
be expected to vet every film, every book, ever music CD we review.
Moreover, if someone is keen on going to court for damages, who are
they
likely to sue -- us or the big media conglomerate in New York?
Now, consider an 'independently published' book. We have no defense
whatsoever. No one has vetted the work. In all likelihood, no one has
even
edited it. And in the case of a libel suit, who will be the probable
target
-- the author, who has no money, or us?
On the other hand, a feature story is a possibility.
Thanks for writing.
Jerome Weeks
Book columnist
The Dallas Morning News
___________

Tom Hendricks
ed. of the 14 year old zine Musea

musea.us
hunkasaurus.com
Myspace.com/musead
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tomhendricks474@cs.com
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hendricks