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Tuesday, April 9, 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN commer Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
BSU Communication
The Black Student Union and Richard Nixon have two things in common. Both consider themselves politically sophisticated, yet both lack sophistication in dealing with the press.
And at least partly as a result of this shortcoming, both have political difficulties. The BSU creates more of its own problems than the press could ever dream of creating.
The BSU asserts that it has been the victim of inaccurate and distorted reporting. Consequently, it believes that the press has set out deliberately to damage or destroy the BSU.
Inaccuracies and distortions more often come from poor communication of information by news sources and misunderstanding of information reporters can do a mistake ininate both problems, but the solution isn't in the direction of cutting off communications.
Rather, it is in the direction of opening up communications. There are many ways in which to make a difference, all of them involve expressing it.
Lack of sophistication shows most obviously when the BSU ascribes its difficulties to a conspiracy theory. Saying that information and data are "tools of the administration" approaches the ludicrous.
In saying that, the BSU assumes that the administration wants to let
the BSU fade away. If the administration wanted the BSU to fade away, it would give the BSU the silent treatment and seek to avoid all mention of it.
That's obviously not the direction in which the BSU wants to go. But its own reticence may send it in that direction.
The BSU says that programs to help black students at this University no longer receive top priority and that countering that shift in emphasis is a major task for it. If that's the case, then the BSU needs now more than before to establish its case convincingly.
And by taking the attitude that the press is an enemy, the BSU stands against it. It has nothing beyond its own ranks by presenting its case in the press.
And if this newspaper were a tool of the administration, it, too, would avoid all mention of the BSU, instead to ignore it into oblivion.
How it will do that is a good question. By taking the attitude that "we got better things to do than hassle around with white students," as Michael Moore does, he can give him a more throat in the Student Senate.
An approach more likely to succeed would involve the establishment of more cordial press relations by adequately presenting and explaining the BSU. It would be better politics.
—Bob Simison
Whistlestop Won't Help
It's 9 p.m. any night. A lone woman is walking home from her class when she is passed by one of the campus' many joggers. The jogger stops and asks her for the time. The reply is a shrill blast on a whistle. The frightened jogger dashes off swearing to himself that he was going to ask a question. But meanwhile, the assault is reported to police and there is an all points bulletin out on the hapless jogger.
The plight of the innocent jogger is just one of many possible incidents that could occur this spring if KU's women are armed with the 5,000 whistles that the dean of women's office says it has ordered.
The fear of rape on the University of Kansas campus has reached frantic proportions. And out of the hysteria has sprung an irrational and very unlikely solution to the problem of sexual assault. The solution is called Whistlestop and it is being supported by the Office of the Dean of Women.
Why whistles in the first place?
The scream of a terrified woman is surely more of an alarm than is a whistle. But women say that they are sometimes too frightened to scream. If they are paralyzed to the point that they cannot scream, who is it that fright, then how will they have the sense to draw a whistle to their lips?
Who is going to prevent the use of whistles for anything other than an assault alarm? Are dog trainers, athletic coaches, and police officers being used by criminals using whistles? The air could soon be permeated by the noise of
pranksters, crying not "wolf," but "rape." And was that the whistle indicating the classes are over or the man is asking that she was being assaulted?
Casey Eike, assistant to the dean of women, said last week that the Whistlestop program was a symbol of progress, standing together against assaults.
"We want to show that women are tired of assaults and are willing to take action together in some program to stop them," Eike said.
If women are tired of rapes then why don't they band together for something more than a symbolic program to stop them?
Certainly the dean of women's office has the influence to demand that the University's Security and Parking department get out of their autos and walk foot patrols, that the University invest in more lighting on campus, that the funds be made available to reinstitute an escort service similar to Operation Escort and that the University bus system run more buses for longer hours in the night. The money that has been made available to purchase 5,000 whistles could easily be put into a reward fund for information leading to the capture of the man thought to be responsible for about 20 rapes since summer.
There is a rape hysteria on the KU campus as the numerous nightly assault rumors and erroneous rape reports indicate, but the implementation of the Whistlestop program is neither going to diminish the hysteria or eliminate rape. The program is only going to add to the frantic atmosphere.
Jeff Stinson
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Editor
Press, Lawyers Abuse Amendment
BY FRED W. FRIENDLY
Reminisit to the Los Angeles Times
A distinguished American editor said to a colleague of mine at a convention not long ago, "Tell Friendly the First Amendment includes the right to be laxous."
That remark, duly passed along, seems to sum up for me a widespread misunderstanding of what freedom of the press is all about—not only among American journalists but also among members of the legal profession.
when us "right to be lousy" is extended to the only newspaper in town or to one of the few television stations in an entire region, it seems to serve no more purpose than to justify the right to be irresponsible. The First Amendment has a higher purpose than that, and newsman, of all people, should know it.
James Madison and Patrick Henry most assuredly did not draft the First Amendment, but he did make a number of privileges of a special trade, no matter how nails its calling might be, which is the way many news executives of today view it. As a consequence, I don't know which of these privileges do not turbits
flooding the courts with subpoenaed reporters and contempt citations, or newsmen and publishers crying "First Amendment" every time they are
On one disturbing front, the Florida Supreme Court ruled last summer that a newspaper must publish "any reply" a candidate for office might make if the newspaper fails to list all others who have attacked a candidate's personal character.
The rulage is probably unconstitutional, and let's hope the U.S. Supreme Court will so rule. But while the American Civil Liberties Union and many news organizations are supporting the defendant, the Miami Herald, a number of respected civil libertarians claim the plaintiff, Pat Tornillo, has a strong case.
They are saying, freedom of the press belongs to those who own the presses.
The paper's refusal to print his reply, assuming it was not libelous, has brought litigation which needlessly exposes a raw nerve. It may be the Herald's editorial page, but it is everybody's First Amendment. The author admits that the antiterrorism almost a knee-jerk reaction—has burdened the First Amendment with another court confrontation.
legislature, with breaking state laws during a teachers' strike.
Broadcasters, too, have abused the idea of the First Amendment—especially in defending their campaign against the FCC's fairness doctrine. Simply stated, the doctrine says that a broadcast licensee must work:
- To devote a reasonable amount of broadcast time to discussion of constructive feedback.
—To do so fairly, in order to afford reasonable opportunity for opposing views.
Every journalist worth the name subscribes to such principles. It hardly goes against the spirit of the First Amendment. To see how the idea of freedom of the press has been misused in confrontations between broadcasters and lawyers, one
Their arguments make me uncomfortable and, I for one, would feel less uneasy had the Miami Herald's editorial judgment not exposed the First Amendment to such a serious attack. Its editors had charged Tornillo, then campaigning for the state
need look no further than the recent case of Accuracy in Media v. NBC. In resolving the complaint, the FCC committed a capital letter violation of the essential meaning of the fairness doctrine by correcting an unintentionally certainly lower-case violation by NBC News.
" --- AND MOMMY AND DADDY AND EVERYBODY EXCEPT THAT DIRTY *@@%*@@@ CSONKA!"
Accuracy in media took on NBC before the FCC for a broadcast called "Pensions: The Broken Promise." A bold demonstration of investigative reporting, the program largely concerned (self with analyzing the defects in the private pension system)—not with examples of pension plans that work. The network never contended that all pension plans were sickly; in fact, the Frum's closing included the statement that "the private pension system is excellent (but) some loopholes need to be closed."
Griff and the Unicorn
ACCURACY IN MEDIA had as much right as Ralph Nader or any public-interest group to question NBC news on fairness; yet how could the commissioners and NBC occupie and dangerous ground? My answer guess: to teach each other a lesson.
Strictly on professional standards, one can regret that NBC News did not choose to use its own airway to ventilate the issue once the controversy arose. NBC had every justification to be of its investigative journalism, but got on a high horse in its unwillingness to devote—on its own terms—any additional prime time to the subject. The NBC News team was involved in such a pressurized situation. Pursuing it further might have kept the FCC out of its newsroom, and NBC News out of the courtroom.
NBC News and the Miami Herald are making the mistake of pushing the First Amendment too far; the FCC and others are pushing too hard from the other direction.
THUS, AS 1972 will go down in history as the year in which constitutional government was almost abducted, 1973 may be remembered as the time when freedom of the press, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, was caught in a senseless tug of war between those who didn't respect it and those who really didn't understand it.
With a little luck, 1974 will be the year in which Americans in their living rooms—no less than those in the newsrooms and courtrooms—discover anew that the First Amendment is too important to be entrusted solely to lawyers and journalists.
It was Justice Learned Hand who said that a constitution which only a court can save, can no longer be saved. It is also true that a free press that only an absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment can save, can no longer be saved.
Compensation Needed for Racism
The Washington Post
DY WILLIAMMORRIS
WASHINGTON - How can I be in favor of "affirmative action" to increase educational and vocational opportunities for minority members unless I also favor the same sort of action to increase white inclusion, in say, professional basketball?
At least some of the readers who ask this question every time I discuss the question of "quotas" must be serious. Perhaps this one is:
"I watched TV on Sunday. I saw a couple of championship basketball games. I would guess that about 75 or 80 per cent of the players were black. I did not see one Jew playing. It seems to me that we must cure whites, and of Jews in particular, even though, as you say, it is not possible to do so without affecting the black group's 'overrepresentation.' Never mind the fact that blacks seem better endowed by nature than whites, the quality of basketball would decline if we embark on this scheme of 'affirmative action.'
"THEY I watched a track meet. There was a mile relay, in which about 10 colleges entered teams of four men each. Each man drove the car with an average 40 runners, nearly half were black . . .
"I have never seen a black pole-vaulter, shot-putter or swimmer. And only one or two black golfers, and they never win. And who is there besides Arthur Ashe?
"But, 'genetics' is a dirty actist word, and anyway it doesn't matter, since we must evidently now apply 'affirmative action' and ensure that Fims, Croatians, Guerjates and Seminoles are all represented in every activity in this country, in proportion to their populations, and to hell with competition, quality or merit."
"So go ahead and tell me that basketball is a street game and black urban boys can afford basketball but not tennis rackets or golfing fees. Maybe also there is a sociological explanation of a genetic trait that makes black sprinters vs. white distance runners.
by Sokoloff
SPKDLOFF
That's a pretty fair summation of the arguments most frequently heard against efforts to correct the effects of centuries of anti-black discrimination in America.
The sports analogy overlooks some important distinctions, both in the selection process and in goals. It is simple, for instance, to judge a running pitcher against each other on the same track, under the same conditions. Anyone who supposes it is similarly easy, or even possible, to rate potential doctors or postal supervisors is kidding himself.
You can do a certain preliminary weeding but out once you are down to a pool of applicants that seem good bets to be com-
panies. If you find that your test scores become relatively useless.
The reasons have to do not just with the difficulty of refining tests but also with an intermingling of goals. If, for instance, the goal is to deliver a baton from Point A to Point B, then surely thousands of people are competent to meet that goal, and meet it within reasonable time. It is important to consider competent baton delivers, it is reasonable to consider factors besides relative test scores in making the final selection.
But relay races have very little to do with delivering bats; they are elimination competitions, whose aim is not to establish a clear record. But everybody except the eventual winner.
We have established colleges and universities not to eliminate people but to train them. We establish businesses and agencies not to determine who is the best file clerk or the fastest public information officer in the land but to accomplish a piece
Reader Responds Editorial Lacks Cogent Comment
To the Editor:
In her editorial last Thursday, "Nixon Sets Records," Linda Dohrity set her own record for undermining the Kansan's capacity for coent comment.
The fact that Nixon's Cabinet has been refinished a few times, that his aides and former vice president were indicted and that he owes back taxes are not in themselves grounds for impeachment. Nixon is obviously quite the weaker and less powerful than he was as a result, but Doherty's stale statistical study doesn't logically lead to her cutesy "could and should" conclusion. She has copied a grievous out in presenting peripheral trivia without examining the real problems at hand. Doherty has been struck by the bandwagon and her beauty reasoning by water as a . . . well, as a leaky water rate.
Tim Bradley Lawrence junior
of work.
And in choosing among people who are capable of accomplishing that piece of work, it can be very useful to consider some other factors. Ms. Hennessey scored 94 while another scored 83.
In athletics, the score is an end in itself—which, incidentally, is why I haven't joined those who urge special consideration for black golfer Lee Elder in the Masters Golf tourney. The Masters rules are tough, but they are consistent. And they relate only to golf.
As to that business about "Finns,
Croatians, Gugerati and Seminoles," if my correspondent is suggesting that members of these groups should be forced into playing football or selling securities because they are underrepresented in those activities, then he is bein' facetious.
If, on the other hand, he is saying that their underrepresentation is not accidental—that they are cut out of vital areas of American life as the direct result of overt, conscious, systematic discrimination against them—then, damned right! it is fair to do what is necessary to correct that injustice. Starting the day before yesterday.
By ROBERT S. ELEGANT The Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times
Hanoi Cools Relations With Red Superpowers
SAIGON - The split between Hanoi and the two Communist superpowers is becoming so wide that only North Vietnam's desperate dependence on Peking and Moscow is in danger.
preventing an open cupboard, an easy sauna, a hot bath and the use of a big brother's "big brothers" by such utter need. Hanoi has hardly ever been more bitter in its public and private denunciations of those who
Recent statements by North Vietnamese organs have charged that the United States is using its diplomatic contacts with the Chinese and the Russians to isolate Hanoi. In addition, the official press has indicated that Peking's and Moscow's policy of detente was enabling the United States to violate the Iranian cease-fire with impunity.
But the Vietnamese Communists have been even more vehement and candid in brief cadres in South Vietnam. Peking, Hanoi's men in the south are being told, oppose a stepup in military activity. The Soviets, for their part, are accused of being "fointed hearted" and reneging on promised economic and military aid.
In addition, North Vietnam is openly snubbing Soviet and Chinese representatives in Hanoi.
when the Chinese moved to reclaim from South Vietnamese hands the Paracel Islands they considered their own territory. Hanoi officially commented only that such disputes should be settled by negotiations. But, privately, North Vietnam officials characterized these negotiations as a further demonstration of China's韋ilpilla-oid aggression against Vietnam.
Most startling, however, has been the open criticism of China and Russia in southern cadre briefings. The Communists in the south have been warned to expect little assistance from the Communist super-powers. The Russian commitment to detain, they have been told, means that international time, the Chinese are not expected to spend. The International proletarian solidarity."
Analysts think that Hanol would not discourage its dispirited forces further unless it felt the situation was close to desperate.
Yet Hanoi is dependent upon Peking and Moscow for arms and for foodstuffs to feed its civilian population. In addition, the North Vietnamnes are asking for great quantities of military equipment.
Another source of friction, in addition to the resentment on by such dependence, is deteriorating relations between Hanol's forces on the South Vietnamese-Cambodian
lure and the tunnel rough.
Intense friction has been reported between the nominal allies.
Intense intense has disturbed the habitable Himal has been destroyed in respect of both Peking and Moscow since pressure from these entities foresees it largely to last year's cease-fire.
captured earlier to it agree to last year because
You now forced it, I complained that the Sino-Soviet guarrel was hurting its cause.
Years earlier, it compelled the author to There is, of course, a strange contradiction in Hanoi's stepping up its propaganda campaign against its only friends precisely when it most needs their help. As specialists internet the curious move, it has three motivations:
imperate the narrow life; it has also shaped Moscow's hope of embarrassing Peking and Moscow into giving it greater aid;
The further we are from building rooftops and superpowers can be wooed from their fascination with detente back to full-scale support of the "international liberation
A natural tendency to give vent to bitterness in order to relieve frustration when Hanoi can do little concrete about its predicament.