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.@TorontoStar says I can't be a columnist and an activist at the same time, so I'm giving up my column. https://t.co/keGJlESd8L — Desmond Cole (@DesmondCole) May 4, 2017

He’d been called in for a chat about the paper’s rules separating journalism from activism and told, by the mild-mannered and lovely man who is the Star’s editorial page editor, Andrew Philips, that his recent disruption of a Toronto Police Services Board meeting, complete with the old black power salute, had violated the paper’s policy.

Philips didn’t discipline Cole or attempt to rein him in; he just gave him the lay of the land and in fact said he hoped he’d continue writing.

That wasn’t good enough for Cole, who wrote in his blog, “I appreciate the offer, but I’m not going to accept it. If I must choose between a newspaper column and the actions I must take to liberate myself and my community, I choose activism in the service of black liberation.”

It isn’t clear to me from Cole’s own account that anyone, least of all Philips, told him he “must choose” between the two.

A day or so later, the Star’s public editor, Kathy English, explained in a very good column the paper’s policies, reiterated that Philips was simply explaining these to Cole (who allowed in his piece no one had done that before) and defended them as proper.

The rules, English said, give columnists a little more latitude, to which as a Star reader I would say, doh.

At times, Star columnists have been frothing-at-the-mouth activists (Michele Landsberg is one who comes to mind) and the paper has been indulgent and sometimes over-the-moon proud of them. The line is certainly fuzzier with opinion writers than it is with pure reporters.