COPYRIGHT PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE 450 Mission Street, Room 204 San Francisco, CA 94105 415-243-4364 http://www.pacificnews.org Used here with permission. Donot repirnt or post to Web sites without permission from Pacific News Service. OPINION-700 WORDS CENSORING A POET'S VOICE -- NPR DECISION A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT EDITOR'S NOTE: When National Public Radio commissioned a "news" poem from this year's American Book Award winner Martin Espada, no one (including the poet) foresaw that he would draw his inspiration from a story about death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. NPR rejected the poem -- an act that many critics, including the poet, view as censorship. PNS associate editor Dennis Bernstein is a producer for Pacifica Radio and an award winning investigative reporter. BY DENNIS BERNSTEIN, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE BERKELEY, CA. -- National Public Radio's refusal to air a poem it commissioned for National Poetry Month sets a dangerous precedent. The effect is particularly chilling because so many consider NPR as an alternative, willing to air voices that do not find their way into the mass media. In April, NPR staff commissioned the poet Martin Espada to write a poem in response to some recent item in the news. Espada, whose latest volume of poetry won this year's American Book Award, is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, and his poems have been broadcast on NPR in conjunction with news stories on a number of occasions. While visiting Philadelphia, Espada says, he read a Philadelphia Weekly story about a move by lawyers for Mumia Abu Jamal, a death row inmate and former reporter whose 15 year struggle to win a new trial for the murder of a police officer has drawn international attention. The story reported that Jamal's lawyers had found "an unnamed prostitute" who was on the scene the night of the killing and can exonerate Jamal. It also noted that another prostitute, Cynthia White, had disappeared after [80 lines left ... full text available at <url:http://www.reference.com/cgi-bin/pn/go?choice=message&table=05_1997&mid=4452692&hilit=CENSORED+CENSORING+CENSORS> ] -------------------------------- Article-ID: 05_1997&4432533 Score: 88 Subject: Re: NEONAZIS QUEREM NEWSGROUP NA NET