'Union-Tribune': We're Not Trying To Push Goldborough Out

By: Mark Fitzgerald Longtime San Diego (Calif.) Union-Tribune columnist Jim Goldsborough -- whose columns attacked George W. Bush as often as the newspaper's editorials praised the president -- says he can't help but see a political motive behind Publisher David Copley's eleventh-hour spiking of a column set to run last Monday.

"I don't think I'm 'liberal,' but I'm certainly not pro-Bush, and I think this was payback," Goldsborough told E&P Wednesday.

Thursday, The Copley Press Inc.'s top lawyer said that was not the publisher's motivation at all.

"It is the case that Dave Copley took a look at the column, the proposed column, as he often does, though not always," said President and General Counsel Harold W. "Hal" Fuson Jr. "He was concerned about the potential for some members of the community taking inordinate offense, and wasn't persuaded that the strength of the column's analysis outweighed that risk."

Goldsborough said the column discussed the reasons that Jewish voters by a three to one margin cast their presidential ballots for Democrat John Kerry. The Bush campaign advertised more heavily than Republicans normally do in Jewish newspapers and elsewhere, hoping the president's strong pro-Israel stance might blunt the Democratic Party's strength among Jews.

"This went through three editors, and they saw no problem with it," Goldsborough said. "This was, I though, a really interesting column, offensive to no one."

Fuson said the Copley's decision to kill the piece was not capricious: "Dave has never spiked one of Jim's columns before. It was an unusual act. But as Jim himself has acknowledged, it's certainly Dave's right to do that. It's something he exercises extraordinarily rarely."

Neither was the decision politically motivated, Fuson added. He noted that the editorials and op-eds have been spread over three pages since the 1992 merger of the Union and Tribune. "On balance, we have and continue to provide more opinions than most newspapers our size do -- and those opinions come from a variety of spectra," Fuson said.

Goldsborough argued Wednesday that the Copley's action will upset what has been "a good balance" of views on the op-ed pages." Now the balance is tilted back in one direction, which is what I think the publisher wants to do," he said.

Copley did not want to chase away the columnist, Fuson said. "Dave made it clear to him that he's perfectly willing to keep him in his role," Fuson said. "But Jim indicated he had other projects, and we wish him the best in whatever he does."