Controversy is swirling around the student paper at Colorado State University, which is not far from UNC. In case you haven't seen it yet, here is the headline that caused all the controversy. Please follow the link or you’re not going to understand the rest of my post.
Yes, you read that right.
At first, I thought that those calling for the editor's resignation were off base. But then I read the story, if you can call it that. It's just a headline. It almost looks like a joke gone bad, like someone put in a fake headline to save space for the real story but forgot to put in the real story. (This has happened at many a newspaper. Just ask anyone who's worked in the business.)
The question for me isn't whether the F-word should be used in a newspaper. I see it all the time in Denver's alternative weekly, Westword, which has great reporting and writing for the most part. The question for me is whether the news item serves the community. In this case, the community is the students, faculty and staff of Colorado State University. In my humble opinion, the headline alone didn't do anything except create controversy. The editors could have written an editorial under the controversial headline, detailing how President Bush helped create the atmosphere in which the University of Florida campus police thought they could use their taser on a student asking a question in an open forum. If you haven’t heard about the taser story yet, please check out the video on U-tube. It's pretty scary.
As I write this, the CSU paper's editor, J. David McSwane, is scheduled to go before the Board of Student Communications on Wednesday. The board will decide what action, if any, should be taken.
Our own student paper, The Mirror, did a great job editorializing on this issue.
The First Amendment is alive and well. But journalistic ethics is another story. And another post….
3 comments:
The f word carries punch. Journalists like punch. I would have to agree, this punch, was not ethically sound. I think The Mirror's article was right on par.
Wow. I can't tell you how I feel right now. Somehow, I don't think Pulitzer or Murrow, for that matter, would consider that any sort of "story" worth journalistic merit.
What the f--- indeed.
The "editorial" generated discussion, but not the type of discussion intended by the editorial board, I don't believe. Rather than discussion about First Amendment rights, the discussion centers on a dubious choice of words at best. As journalists we have the right to say pretty much anything. But we aren't free to escape the consequences of what we say. The CSU newspaper editorial demonstrated the right to say anything. The reaction demonstrates the consequences.
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