Coulter's DNC Coverage for 'USA Today' Gets Delayed Start

Coulter's DNC Coverage for 'USA Today' Gets Delayed Start: "NEW YORK A USA Today plan to have conservative columnist Ann Coulter take shots at the Democratic National Convention this week got off to a delayed start after editors held her first column, slated for today's edition, asking that she make changes to it before it ran.

As of this afternoon, the column -- originally submitted by Coulter on Sunday -- was still set to be published in Tuesday's editions, according to USA Today spokesman Steve Anderson. But he said editors had not yet heard back from her about unspecified changes they sought in the piece. The paper has a 5 p.m. deadline for her changes to be submitted.

Anderson stressed that the column had not been spiked. Michael Moore will cover the Republican convention for the newspaper.

'Ms. Coulter filed a column for today's paper and our editors made some suggestions and asked her to consider them,' Anderson said. 'But by that point it was late in the day (Sunday) and there was no rush to get it in the paper, so we decided to hold it for a day.' Anderson would not discuss the content of the column.

Coulter, whose regular syndicated column is distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, issued a short statement Monday afternoon about the situation:

'USA Today doesn't like my 'tone,' humor, sarcasm, etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them. Perhaps they thought they were getting CATHERINE Coulter.'

A copy of what appears to be the disputed column dated today was posted Monday on Coulter's Web site, www.anncoulter.com."



By Joe Strupp