Kansas City Star demotes Lewis Diuguid from VP position

Controversial columnist Lewis Diuguid has been demoted from his Vice President position at the Kansas City Star, and has also been hit with a big pay cut.

Diuguid, a lightning rod for criticism by conservatives for his often inflammatory views on race relations, is said to be losing his Vice President of Community Resources title along with a pay cut to now be a writer.

During the Obama presidential campaign he drew national attention for a column saying anyone who said Obama was a socialist was a racist. His "socialist is racist code language for black" comments were blasted by Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators as an example of some journalists who were making everything racial during the campaign.

Diuguid will reportedly work as a writer under Miriam Pepper, V-P of the Editorial Page. It's a hit for Lewis Diuguid but he got better treatment than these people.
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Kansas City Star reassigns Lewis Duiguid, controversial columnist who said "socialist is racist code language for Black"

Lewis W. Diuguid, the Kansas City Star columnist who was widely mocked after claiming in a recent column that "socialist" is racist code language for "black," has been reassigned and will no longer publish a regular column in the Kansas City Star.

Lewis W. Diuguid, columnist, editorial board member and vice president for community resources at the Kansas City Star, is losing his column as Star Publisher Mark Zieman assigns him more responsibilities elsewhere, Diuguid said on Wednesday.

"I have about six jobs. I am responsible for The Star's philanthropic efforts in the community, I do more than 200 speaking engagements on behalf of The Star and I am co-chair of the companywide diversity initiative. I will be picking up duties that include staff development and community forums," Diuguid told Journal-isms.

"I am to remain on the editorial board as its only minority member but with no public voice.

"I have been writing a column for The Star since June 1987. I got permission to write the column once a week to add perspective to the neighborhood news section that I edited back then. The column grew to twice a week as I took on writing for an additional section, and then in May 1994 the column became a twice a week metro column. I started doing a third column not long afterward by continuing to write for one of the neighborhood news sections. In September 1999 I moved to my current position, writing two columns a week. In April 2006 the second column was killed. In the time I have been writing a column, I have never missed an opportunity to write a column — not for holidays, vacations, sicknesses or for deaths in my family. No box has ever run saying my column will return whenever."

Duiguid's outlandish October column was linked by Drudge Report, and was a topic on the Rush Limbaugh radio show and multiple blogs. Here's an excerpt from the goofy column that implied McCain and Palin are racists:

"McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black.  It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare..."

The "Journal-isms" article by Richard Prince did not give a reason for Diuguid's reassignment, and publisher Mark Zieman was said to be "on vacation."

Related:

• McClatchy columnist claims "socialist" is code language for "Black"