Does HNN Screen Articles for Vituperative Statements?

At the 2003 annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Eric Foner, past president of the OAH, criticized HNN. Mr. Foner said:

Today also, statements about history that in normal times might be considered uncontroversial are regularly labeled treasonous. If you don't believe me, just click into History News Network which regularly publishes scurrilous, if not libelous, attacks on historians including myself, often with no basis in fact whatsoever, and that's their freedom of speech, but I hope nobody here takes that stuff seriously.

Mr. Foner afterwards explained to HNN that he was upset with the personal criticism Ronald Radosh and David Horowitz have leveled. He said he does not want to infringe on anybody's freedom of speech, but mentioned that the attacks have led some individuals to harass him.

In response to his criticism, HNN has published the following statement in FAQ's:

Deciding where the line falls between personal vituperation and freedom of the press is, of course, a challenge. The line moves constantly. What is acceptable today wasn't acceptable a decade ago. What can be said about a politician with power is different from what should be said about a historian, even a prominent one. Applying the same standard to a historian as a politician is unfair given the disproportionate power that they exercise in our society. But what is personal and what is political? The distinction is a pretty fine one. And as the women's movement made clear, what is personal is often political.

Because publishing a piece confers legitimacy on it, it is vital to screen out pieces that are solely vituperative. But what about a piece that is both vituperative and educational? Many pieces fall into this category. And deciding what is and is not vituperative is often difficult, liberals and conservatives reaching different conclusions.

Then there are the articles that seem worthwhile as artifacts of the age--primary sources, in effect--valuable not so much for the analyses they offer as for the evidence they provide of the broad range of American opinion.

Completely ignoring writers who make strong personal statements would be a disservice to our readers, leaving them with a falsely narrow impression of the parameters of the national debate. At the same time it is inappropriate for HNN to appear to endorse attacks which are needlessly personal or incendiary.

A practical solution, fortunately, is at hand given the way HNN is now organized. Pieces that we publish in full -- these are the pieces listed on the homepage -- must pass the Above Board Test, meaning that strictly vituperative statements about historians will be disallowed. But to give the reader a clear picture of the wide range of statements being made about historians we include excerpts in ROUNDUP and other places where appropriate. Excerpting a piece does not confer on it the HNN seal of approval. Plainly libelous statements of course will never be published anywhere on the site, though determining what is and is not libelous is a matter of judgment.