Random House pulls Shirley Jones' "Jewel of Medina": Corporate cowardice or clever marketing ploy?

Random House pulls Sherry Jones’ “Jewel of Medina”: Corporate cowardice or clever marketing ploy?

Today's Financial News - Posted August 8, 2008

Is Random House’s dropping of Sherry Jones’ novel Jewel of Medina merely a display of the Western media’s overall spinelessness? Or a clever marketing ploy?

by J. Christoph Amberger

Baltimore — (TFN): Another great example of Western commitment to free expressionn and the free exchange of ideas:

“Publisher Random House has pulled a novel about the Prophet Mohammed’s child bride, fearing it could ‘incite acts of violence.’ The Jewel of Medina, a debut novel by journalist Sherry Jones, 46, was due to be published on August 12 by Random House, a unit of Bertelsmann AG, and an eight-city publicity tour had been scheduled, Jones told Reuters on Thursday.”

Is this merely a display of the Western media’s overall spinelessness, cowardice, and groveling subservience to political correctness that fits quite well with observations I made several months ago on my Smackdown?

Or a clever marketing ploy by Random House?

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