Times Withholds Web Article in Britain
By TOM ZELLER Jr.

www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/business/medi...tml?pagewanted=print

If Web readers in Britain were intrigued by the headline

Oh God, this century we are witnessing the species falling apart.

Probably because they are not true !

(Anyone remember the "Ricin" plot case? The one where the police said they had found ricin in a flat but it turned out to be in smaller quantities that occurs normally in EVERY house?)

Facts cannot be released prior to trial for fear of prejudicing a jury (who will make up their mind from tabloid headlines rather than the facts outlined in Court).

Why then do the police brief the media so regularly?

Say Canadians, Aussies, Irishmen

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34028

By Paul Hales

THE NEW YORK TIMES' little experiment with posting an article that only non-Brits can read is a bit of a failure as far as INQ readers are concerned.
Steve wrote from Dahn Under to protest that the article in question could not be viewed in Australia. "In Australia we are unable to see the article and get the same redirection as UK websites," he writes. "Hmm, I'm being censored."

David, who is in the UK, could read the offending article. But he seems to work for a French company which is an aggravation for him as he keeps getting re-directed to the INQUIRER France. Mon dieu!

Funnily enough, Canadians too have been branded Brits. Ed writes to say: "Well I can confirm that us Canucks cannot see it either. Simple solution, use a US proxy server."

If that's not bad enough, the Irish too have been lumped in with the British, as Mr Woods wrote to tell us: "I was surprised to see that Irish residents are blocked from the article too. Somehow they believe I'm currently under the juristiction of British law. Bit of a No-No. But it just goes to show how crude some of the filters actually are." Indeed.

Looks like the New York Times is using a World map from around 1920.

Finally, it seems the paper also forgot that it syndicates its copy to other journals who may not have the same army of helpful lawyers. So those Canadians who missed out can turn to the Toronto Star where the piece has been reprinted in full.

Should we publish the L'INQ to that piece? It's an interesting question. What if we publish it but ban UK readers from clicking it? Can we be held responsible for what's published at the end of it? Stranger things have happened. Still, we assume INQUIRER readers will be able to dig it out for themselves, as necessary.

What we don't quite understand is why Scotland Yard blabbed all the details to the New York Times in the first place. Ok. that's a lie. We know exactly why they did it but if we were to say so we'd have the boys in blue visting us and beating us up again.

And we're sick of that.