Rocky Mountain Collegian: F*** BUSH
Friday, the Rocky Mountain Collegian out of Colorado State University published this on their Opinion page:
TASER THIS. F*** BUSH.
The four-word editorial was intended to ignite a debate about free speech according to editor-in-chief J. David McSwane. As you can imagine, the story hit Drudge and was featured on Rush Limbaugh yesterday. And according to a local news station, McSwane is close to losing his job.
The Collegian, like The Daily Illini is an independent publication that receives no University funding. So while administrators have no direct power over any of the operators or editors of the paper, they can use that newsy term you hear about in those COMM classes: Flak.
While everyone generally agrees that this paper had every constitutional right to print that, the debate is whether they should have printed that. Personally, I say no. Why?
The UF Taser incident and President Bush had very little in common. It just didn’t make sense to put them together. Secondly, they made the mistake of using President Bush as their target. This is what made the conservative media care about it in the first place. Surely, if they believe that they are the David to the liberal media Goliath, then they agree with the Collegian editors’ right to publish that. But that’s not a ratings grabber. Instead, they get to use this as an excuse to bash academia and the press as being too-liberal. The point is that by introducing a partisan-figure into the argument, they’ve muddied the waters of the debate and incurred the wrath of a great deal more people than they needed to. It’s not about free speech anymore, it’s about politics.
Third, if they want to talk about free speech, talk about something more substantive. How about Columbia University’s decision to let Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak at its campus next week? How about Ward Churchill? How about China’s lack of free speech? Or more appropriately, why didn’t they talk about FCC obscenity regulations? Why are newspapers allowed to print 4-letter words but radio and TV stations can be fined or have their licenses revoked if they utter them on the air?
Newspapers, especially college newspapers, make mistakes. That’s why they exist, for people to learn. I don’t disagree with The Collegian’s ideals, but they should choose their methods more wisely next time.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:48 am
The Daily Illini’s condemnation of Rocky Mountain Collegian’s decision to speak out against unchecked aggressions towards student speech is, frankly, very sad, as is Mr. Mason’s attempts to keep separate the paper’s and the tasered student’s actions.
It is clear that the tasering incident and the Bush administration do not seem the least bit related to the writer. Bush, in his opinion, is just as an easy scapegoat the paper chose to drag into the situation for a little more unwarranted battering. This is quite telling. This belief alone sheds much light on why the writer is unable to see the connection between incidents. But there’s more.
Stating that other “free speech” issues deserve more attention that this is a most unfortunate choice. This off-topic distraction it is a base red herring which attempts to render the topic at hand irrelevant. It is most definitely not.
And I’m not even going to begin unpacking the ideological blocks the author illustrates with a comment like “It’s not about free speech anymore, it’s about politics.”
I understand that this is an opinion piece, and that opining doesn’t necessitate political awareness. I also understand that many psychological studies show that people (especially young people) judge people who are similar to them much harsher than they judge those unlike them. Perhaps this is what is happening here. Regardless, I just really expect more from an opinions editor - and from a student paper that sets out ideas for the student body - than critiques flimsily built upon foundations of “Yeah, I don’t get it, therefore it can’t be worthwhile.” This is especially true when difficult politics that are detrimental to student rights receive praise through such shoddy logic as your writer’s.
p.s. — as for one reason why free speech and politics can not be extracted from one another here: THEY TASERED A STUDENT FOR ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR COUNTRY’S VOTING PROCESSES IN AN OPEN Q&A SESSION!
October 5th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Compare this with the disgraceful treatment by the Daily Ilini towards Acton Gordon. Anyone but me notice any parallels