Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Debate: "Freedom of expression must include the license to offend"

Date: Today, Wednesday, 18 October, 6:45 p.m.
Venue: Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue at 70th Street, New York City

For the motion: Philip Gourevitch, Christopher Hitchens, Signe Wilkinson
Against the motion: David Cesarani, Daisy Khan, Mari Matsuda

Sponsored by The Times and distributed by National Public Radio, the debate takes place under the auspices of iq²u.s. (Intelligence Squared U.S.). The noble goal is to raise the level of public discourse on the most challenging issues facing us, and…

"To provide a new forum for intelligent discussion, grounded in facts and informed by reasoned analysis. To transcend the toxically emotional and the reflexively ideological. To encourage recognition that the opposing side has intellectually respectable views. To engage the live audience as active participants who will ask questions and decide which speakers have carried the day by voting on the motions both before and after the debate."

Most admirable. And take a look at the list of future debates (and the non-ideological Rainy Day votes on the motions): Spreading democracy in the Middle East is a bad idea (No); A democratically-elected Hamas is still a terrorist organization (Yes); Hollywood has fueled anti-Americanism abroad (Yes); China's economic boom is a threat to the West (Yes); Lawyers are bad for our health (Yes); Aid to Africa has done more harm than good (Yes); America's newspapers are dead (Yes).

Apropos the latter, asked what newspapers he reads every day, Rupert Murdoch tells Time he reads the New York Post, and looks at the front page and editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. "That's about it." Ted Turner, the CNN founder, told the National Press Club on 9 October that it was "all over" for print newspapers and they would soon be a thing of the past. "When I die, they are going to die with me." So, what will we use to wrap our fish and chips? Michael Kinsley declares: "Newspapers on paper are on the way out. Whether newspaper companies are on the way out too depends." Tomorrow, here, branding the star content creators: Stone, Hitchens, Waghorn, Marshall, Baxeley...