Dear Lover of the First Amendment

Dear Lover of the First Amendment,

Thank you for your recent comments to my blog. They will not be approved and published by me. And screaming that I am violating your First Amendment rights is not going to change my mind.

It is obvious that either you have not studied what the First Amendment and related court rulings say, or you are hoping that I am ignorant of my rights as a member of the media, or possibly both.

Arguing that I am curtailing your freedom of speech by not publishing your comments is rather pointless. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of the press---it does not impose any responsibility on me to approve (and publish) any opinions that I disagree with.

Yes, as a journalist, I do have some responsibility under the law. For instance, there is some information and opinions that I am not allowed to print---most of them would be labeled under the terms "treason" or "harmfully to others." But the government cannot force me to publish information and opinions I disagree with. That includes your comments.

The First Amendment extends the freedom to the press, which one judge defined as "every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion." The quickest way to get such freedom is to own such an outlet. May I suggest that you start a blog of your own---there you will be allowed to print all of your opinions---at least until you are taken to court for libel.

Moderating comments on my blog is not a violation of your free speech. I am not the government. I am a member of the New Media---there is a difference.

May you have a nice day,

Morgan Drake Eckstein

The Sun Signs and Love article link

Well, after kicking it around for awhile, I decided to republish my lastest astrology column that I wrote for Campus Connection (the student newspaper for the Community College of Denver) a few days early. Technically, I should have waited until Tuesday when the next issue hits the stands; but considering the subject of the column, love and relationships, I decided to push the envelope and republish early. The other two articles (a follow-up on Amendment 50 and how much funding it has brought in, and an introduction to probability theory) will not be republished until Friday.

You can read What Your Sun Sign Finds Surprising About Love and Relationships over on Associated Content.

Who is my audience?

Lately, I have been kicking around the question of who is my audience. A little bit more than I normally do.

Part of it is the fact that I am starting another semester of writing for Campus Connections, the student newspaper of the Community College of Denver. And we just switched editors, so it is time to refocus what the paper aims for.

Now, a lot of this refocus for me is cleaning up my astrology column based on what I learned last year. But some of it is simply trying to figure out who reads the college newspaper in the first place. Outside of myself and a couple of friends I do not know anyone who reads Campus Connections. (And I read anything, especially if I am bored, so I am not a typically reader. Plus I am a non-traditional student.)

But the question extends past the newspaper. Who exactly is reading my stuff?

I think the high point of pondering the mystery of my audience came recently when I was writing an article on money spells to post on Associated Content. Should I aim for people who know something about magic and money spells (why are they reading AC if they already know something) or should I aim for everyone who does not know the first thing about magic?

In the end, I tossed another item on the stack of beginner's material, doing just a simple money spell that in theory anyone can do. It boiled down to a pageview answer. I just don't think that there are that many advanced people out there to justify writing something complicated (I could be wrong).

What I would really like to see is a market study of the pagan/wiccan/ceremonial magic readership. One that does not rely solely on guessing the audience profile based on the number of books sold (if you go just by the numbers, only beginner pagan/wiccan and new age books and articles should be written). But I am betting that if such a study existed, it would be a trade secret. Alas, I can dream.