I?m a newspaper-holic, as my family can attest.
We can?t travel anywhere that I don?t bring home a suitcase or back seat filled with newspapers, weekly, daily, free or paid. Our habit is bad. I can blame my father for this problem. He devoured newspapers.
Sunday morning, after Mass, I can be found reading the Oregonian and my family knows that unless the town?s on fire, I will be sitting in front of the TV on Sunday evening watching 60 Minutes.
So, when I saw that a young journalist at Oregon State University was fired from the staff of their newspaper, the Daily Barometer, I had to call the editor and ask why.
David Williams, it seems, made the mistake of expressing his free speech rights. For that, he was canned, axed, a journalist with a pen but no outlet for his prose.
What did the young writer do that was so heinous?
It seems the white Mr. Williams had the audacity to write a column that offered up his belief that too many young blacks in this country idolize the wrong role models.
He noted young blacks often make heroes out of drug addicts, street rappers with criminal records and the like.
Mr. Williams offered some statistics to back up his claims that a portion of black America is struggling and needs to refocus to get on track.
He also pointed out that persons of all races do bad things, not just blacks, and yes, he is white and thus his views are from the outside of the black community and not inside.
His column sparked a huge debate on campus. A protest was led by minority groups at which there was little or no support for Mr. Williams? right to freedom of expression, albeit those at the protest were enjoying those rights as they made their points known about campus.
So, when we called the Barometer?s editor and asked what was up, we were told that Mr. Williams was fired because the issue is sensitive and that the newspaper is a learning tool and that he had failed to learn from this.
By learn from this, we queried, did she mean that Mr. Williams? column was poorly written and could have been refined or that his thinking needed to be changed?
We were assured she was talking about his writing style and not about his thinking style. Whew…for a minute we thought free thought was also being banned on campus. Better call out the thought police next.
Why then, we asked, had Mr. Williams? column been allowed to run without being polished in the first place?
The editor said she was gone from the staff that day and it slipped through. That happens.
In that case, shouldn?t her assistants also be fired for allowing such a sensitive and unthoughtful piece to be printed? At the very least should they not be required to attend a refresher course in political correctness?
We don?t care whether folks agree with Mr. Williams? column or not but we do have a problem with his firing simply because he offered up an opinion piece which was printed on the opinion page and it caused readers to be uncomfortable, even angry.
When we entered journalism school in 1973, it was widely accepted that such activity was the purpose of an editorial page. The goal is to poke, prod, examine and make folks uncomfortable to the point that they want to talk about the issue.
One of my favorite crusty professors at Iowa State would have a field day with this story.
Adding confusion to this issue, at least for us, is why the Barometer wasn?t offended by a column printed in another edition, that talked about an anti abortion display on campus. The author talked about viewing dead babies and basically saying, so what, he didn?t care. Isn?t that a sensitive issue as well?
And what about the sex column that was carried by the paper? We glanced at a few of those pieces and they made this old man blush. One could hardly find a more sensitive issue than sex.
At one time, OSU or UO planned to build a dormitory strictly for homosexuals. Didn?t writers voice opinions and wasn?t that a sensitive issue?
The Daily Barometer is a good student newspaper that has come a long way in recent years as has the OSU journalism program that was once on the verge of extinction.
If the purpose of the student newspaper is education, we wonder what lessons Mr. Williams learned.
Did he learn to never write a strong opinion piece again for fear of being fired?
Did he learn to ask permission from others before tackling ?sensitive? issues?
Will he simply leave the business because no one has the backbone to stand up for him and cry foul?
Or, will the student newspaper learn that no matter what the issue, there will be those who holler loudly whenever an opinion with which they disagree is aired publicly. It isn?t just about race, it?s true across the broad spectrum of life. If they yell loudly enough long enough, some editors will back down and the voice of free speech will go silent.
The job of the newspaper should be to keep bringing those issues into the light, asking the public to talk about them and perhaps, someday, reach some common ground.
Blunting free speech certainly is not the way to reach that goal.