Ann Coulter on C-SPAN

In the last week at least seven newspapers have dropped the syndicated column of conservative firebrand Ann Coulter. Speaking at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. on March 2, Coulter said "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I -- so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards." Newspapers that have dropped her column include: Sanford Herald (North Carolina); Daily Chronicle (Illinois); American Press (Louisiana); Lancaster New Era (Pennsylvania); The Oakland Press, (Michigan); The Mountain Press (Tennessee); and The Times (Louisiana). The editorial director of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, David Hampton, said that while he disagreed with her opinions, the paper would keep her column. "I think her popularity will continue to wane. I believe ideas rise and fall on their merits, and I haven't seen much depth in hers," he said.

Andrew Parker, the head of the Australian PR and lobbying firm Parker & Partners -- a part of the Ogilvy PR Worldwide network -- is worried that the Australian government will re-introduce a system of regulating lobbyists. Calls for registering lobbyists have grown in the wake of a series of revelations over the lobbying activities of former West Australian Premier Brian Burke, who was later imprisoned after a Royal commission of Inquiry into business deals done by his government. After serving seven months of a two-year prison sentence, Burke re-invented himself as a lobbyist. "There is no denying the Brian Burkes of this world -- those lobbyists who rely on personal 'political mates' alone -- face extinction. But we need to speed up this process," Parker wrote in an opinion column. While Parker supports lobbyist registration, he has caveats. "Calls for complete financial disclosure are not only unprecedented for other professional service sectors but are designed to simply give these [anti-business] crusaders the ability to misrepresent and deceive," he complained. In the U.S., lobbyists are required to disclose clients and broad details of their work for them.

A satirical ad the New South Wales Mining Council wants banned from the web

By invoking Australian copyright law, the New South Wales Minerals Council (NSWMC) twice succeeded in shutting down a website that satirized its "Life: Brought to you by mining" advertising campaign. However, the website of the spoofers, Rising Tide Newcastle, is now hosted overseas. Following protests that the mining industry was attempting to "silence" them, the environmentalists are enjoying more web traffic than their corporate rivals. NSWMC's chief executive, Nikki Williams, said the industry's campaign is about "establishing a fair voice for the mining industry." Associate lecturer in law at the Queensland University of Technology Peter Black argues, "This is clearly a situation that would be covered by the fair dealing defence of parody and satire. ... This is political speech that is being suppressed by our copyright regulations, which is something that should not happen." The NSWMC represents major mining companies, including subsidiaries of global corporations such as BHP-Billiton and Xstrata.