What the papers wouldn't run

This is what didn't run today in many newspapers across the country

Garry Trudeau knows how to skewer, ridicule and mock our world and the people in it with his classic, long-running comic strip Doonesbury.

Along the way, he stirs up a bit of controversy.

He gets too political for some newspapers. So instead of placing Doonesbury amid all the other strips on the comics page, some papers put it on the editorial page or op-ed page.

Or, newspapers run a substitute strip provided by Doonesbury's syndicate, Universal Press Syndicate, now called Universal UClick, when a topic gets too touchy for "family" newspapers.

Which is what our daily and The Oregonian did today. The Oregonian gave its reasons for not running the above strip, but our paper did not.

Below is the repeat strip that ran in The Bulletin today:

Trudeau speaks about the latest kerfuffle in this Washington Post story.

Before anyway starts crying "censorship," as some did over Rush Limbaugh recently, it should be noted that newspapers, and other forms of media, can choose not to run comics, stories, ads or photos at any time. In fact, they do so on a regular basis.

It's not censorship. It is only censorship when the government says something cannot be printed in a free press.

Newspapers are exercising their editorial judgment when they choose not to run something. You may argue with that decision, but they own the press, the ink and the paper.

Thank God we have the Internet these days. It's harder to suppress the news. And, it's easier to get the word out.

So, you can check out Slate, which runs the Doonesbury strip that Trudeau intends to run on that given day.

Keep surfing the web.