Standing Against the Censorial Mob

A timely reminder from the world's most influential children's author

Over nearly 40 years of investigative reporting, I’ve learned it is not a career for the faint of heart. Exposing people who would rather stay in the shadows results sometimes in threatened legal actions, personal attacks, even physical intimidation. In the pre-digital era, my wife, Trisha Posner, and I, got a deluge of letters wishing one or both of us a miserable and slow death. Some of the more menacing items included a box of dead fish and a rat’s tail. I have been assaulted on the street, picketed in Boston, and accosted on cross country flights.

It is never fun to be on the receiving end of such unhinged anger. As bad as that was, the advent of social media has made it worse. Trolls, hidden behind anonymous user names, spread lies, launch vicious campaigns, and try their best to scare journalists away from covering some scared cows.

One of the new third rails in j…