Ryan Chartrand“Taser this . FUCK BUSH.”
Imagine opening the Mustang Daily Opinion/Editorial page to that statement in bold, 120-point font. What would you do? What would you think? This was exactly how the editorial staff of The Rocky Mountain Collegian greeted the students and community of Colorado State University on Friday.
There was no accompanying article; there was no byline. Those four simple words caused the Collegian’s editorial board to debate for two hours on whether to run the statement, which, in the end, they claimed wasn’t even about George W. Bush so much as it was about the freedom of speech to print it.
But just because you can print something doesn’t mean you should.
At the Mustang Daily, we are granted the right to print essentially whatever we want – no one can censor us and the university has no control over what is published. But we owe it to our readers to present you with fair (not to mention logical and researched) ideas, not just giant statements of randomness for the hell of it.
Jim Killham, the adviser of the Northern Illinois University newspaper said the “article” (if you can call it that) was reminiscent of “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” in which a football player is meant to give a speech and for the lack of anything better to say, he yells, “San Dimas High School football rules!” and everyone cheers.
In this case, the cheering was drowned out by the booing. The newspaper lost about $30,000 in advertising revenue, which means pay cuts in the newsroom, and the editor of the Collegian is being asked to resign. Plus the College Republicans are pissed like you wouldn’t believe.
Now the editor is saying that if he had to do it over again, he would not have run that statement, but would have conveyed the message in a more professional manner. Professionalism aside, if you can print such a statement without backing it up, where is the credibility? All that the readers are left with is the shock value.
As newspaper reporters, we are not afraid of offending you, and we’re not afraid to use the “F-word” – in fact, you can find it three other places in the paper today. Our purpose on the editorial page and throughout the newspaper is to get you thinking about what is going on around you and give you a public forum to discuss the matters.
But just in case we do ever make a statement in bold, 120-point font, you better believe that it’ll be something good.