So, my roommate just got back from visiting his sister at Colorado State, where he saw this story begin to unfold:
Quote:
Univ. Paper Takes Heat Over Obscenity
2 hours ago
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — The editor of the Colorado State University newspaper says he has no plans to resign amid criticism about an obscenity used in an editorial about President Bush.
The four-word editorial, published Friday in the Rocky Mountain Collegian, said in large type, "Taser this. (Expletive) Bush."
J. David McSwane, the Collegian's editor-in-chief and a CSU junior, said the newspaper's governing board may fire him but he won't voluntarily step down.
"I think that'd be an insult to the staff who supported the editorial," McSwane told the Fort Collins Coloradoan in Monday's editions.
The newspaper's business manager has said the operation lost $30,000 in advertising in the hours after the editorial was published, and that the pay of student staffers would be cut 10 percent to compensate.
McSwane said the newspaper's student editors decided to use the obscenity because they believe CSU students are apathetic about their freedom of speech and other rights.
"We thought the best way to illustrate that point was to use our freedoms," he said.
The editors chose not to seek advice from the newspaper's professional advisers to protect them from the controversy they knew the editorial would cause, McSwane said.
"We didn't want any kind of action taken against them by the university," he said.
The Board of Student Communication, which oversees the Collegian and other student media at the university, plans to discuss the editorial when it meets Tuesday night.
|
The use of an obscenity by a student newspaper raises certain free speech concerns, obviously. My question is: do you personally think that the right to free speech comes with the right to say "Fuck Bush" in a newspaper editorial?
I think so. Protections around free speech extend to protecting speech we don't like and disagree with--and the editors of this paper have the right to print an editorial headline as they see fit. That page is a public forum, and they are members of that forum. Our student newspaper has several disclaimers around the editorial page, warning readers that the opinions expressed on the page are the majority opinion of the editorial board or the opinion of the columnist writing, or the opinion of the guest columnist/editorial board (we often print other schools editorials as a way of showing varying opinions).
I have had to put a lot of thought into freedom of speech lately, and so I'm curious to see how others feel about this issue, especially in how it relates to the Colorado State case.