4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
MONDAY,MARCH 24,2003
TALK TO US
Kristi Henderson editor
editor
864-4854 or kdhenderson@kansan.com
884-4854 or khanderson@kansan.com
Jenna Goepfert and Justin Henning
managing editors
884-4854 or jgeupfer@kansan.com and
lhenning@kansan.com
Leah Shaffer
readers' representative
864-4810 or lshaffer@kansan.com
Amanda Sears and Lindsey Hanson
864-492-4100 opinion editor
amanda.hansson.com
Eric Ketting business manager 864-4358 or adsales.kansan.com
Sarah Jantz
retail sales manager
864-4358 or adsales@kansan.com
Matt Fisher
Malcim Gibson
general manager and news advise
864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing adviser
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Free for All
Call 864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
I was walking past one of those peace protests up on campus and I recognized a girl that I'd siept with once and I asked her how she was and if she had had a baby, and it turned out that she was with her boyfriend and he punched me.
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We're driving through Missouri on the way to Florida and we just pooped in Missouri, and it didn't make any difference in the smell at all.
Hey ladies, I was just calling to let you know that the Gillette 3 Mach Turbo for men replacement razor blades cost less and work for the Gillette Venus razor. Have fun and shave on.
--bush is declaring war? What is he, crazy? All these hippies are going to riot now. Please don't riot.
So I'm in Los Angeles and I'm in line to get on The Price is Right, and there are at least four or five other KU people here randomly besides me. That's pretty freakin' weird but it's pretty freakin' cool, too.
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Drop Bush, not bombs.
I just wanted to say that I am ripped and I am in Chicago, and it is a blast. Yeeeahh. Chicago's the bomb.
A
I'm just going to cover all the bases in one call. First I'll insult fraternities and sororites. Then I'll talk about my sex life, then about drinking, insert a random comment about a random object and finish up with a "Mizzou sucks."
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Me and 10 of my friends are on I-70 eastbound from Denver, and we're in a traffic jam and we've been sitting in the same place for three hours, and while we've been sitting here, we've gotten 10 inches of snow. We were wondering if Saferide could come pick us up.
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I'm in New York City right now, and it's a lot like Kansas, really. Half the people are swearing at you while smoking, half the people are walking in front of traffic indiscriminately, end, well, everybody's smoking.
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Spring break, day four. The time is 7 p.m And what am I doing? Laying in bed, exhausted from doing nothing. Kill me now.
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Ukay, so you know you're stoned when you're on spring break and you've been in Colorado for three days and you call and order Gumby's to your Lawrence address.
pure neutrality, you'll have to turn on C-SPAN. Beyond that, the rest of the news gets filtered through people — people who are conservative and liberal.
Last night we were at a bar in Houston and we met Joe Millionsire and Steven from Real World. Joe Millionsire was a really nice guy, but Steven went home with a really ugly girl in a really ugly green dress.
My birthday party's in four weeks, and everyone's invited.
萌
RFRUNS OF OURLIVES
READERS' REPRESENTATIVE
'Sloppy reporting' can cast bias on coverage of combat issues
With the war coverage up and running, now is a particularly touchy time for news organizations to be accused of bias toward either side of the political spectrum.
COMMENTARY
Last week, the Media Research Center, a conservative group, released a report that criticized ABC News as the worst offender among the networks for liberal bias. The report said ABC News "routinely channeled propaganda from the Iraqi regime" and ABC "has touted the size and broadly 'mainstream' nature of anti-war protest movements, without skeptical coverage of their radical organizers."
Meanwhile a liberal group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, also released a study last week saying that the views of Americans who are skeptical of or opposed to an invasion of Iraq have been under-represented by the network newscasts.
If a reader runs into a story that seems biased, this isn't out of some liberal or conservative conspiracy. It's just sloppy reporting. Writing a balanced story, especially revolving around an issue that has no clear-cut sides, is tough for any reporter. Just as ABC will have to struggle with its supposed "liberal bias," reporters for campus newspapers must go out of their way to try to get all views into a story.
So who's right? Is the image of the liberal media an accurate one, or are news organizations more corporate and conservative, swayed by the status quo? The quick answer is both. The problem is generalizing the news organizations as being either wholly liberal or conservative is the wrong perspective to take. The truth of the matter is if you are looking for
Leah Shaffer
readersrep@kansan.com
Here's an example. Suppose, a Kansan reporter wants to get 20 random quotes from people on the street about the war. What if those 20 people all happen to share the same view? Should reporters go out of their way to seek out
the opposite side? If the reporters are doing a good job, they will go out of their way to seek out people with contrary, sometimes unpopular views.
However, it is in how they present that variety of views that the most pernicious biases slip through.
People's views of the war can be greatly altered by what the media decide to first pipe into their television sets. If ABC decides to show film of cheering U.S. soldiers, should they try to balance that out with footage of injured Iraqis? When trying to make the call about what to expose readers and viewers to, reporters' personal biases slip through without them even noticing. It's simply human nature.
The best thing a person can do is take what they read with a grain of salt. To get the bigger picture of what's going on in the world, it may take a variety of sources. Watch Fox News and ABC. Read The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Good news organizations will always try to get the facts. It's how they arrange those facts that can greatly alter your perspectives.
Shaffer is a Hays senior in journalism and environmental studies.
PERSPECTIVE
War protesters need to reevaluate view of human conditions in Iraq
George Orwell once wrote, "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other."
Applying this quote to the current war in Iraq, one could say that those anti-war protesters who actively try to undermine the U.S.-led effort are aiding the tyrannical Iraqi regime. Assuredly, if the antiwar movement achieved its goals, Saddam and his cronies would remain in power.
GUEST COMMENTARY
In opposition to the war, thousands of protesters have signed their names to petitions proudly stating that it would not be fought in their names.
It has long been my wish that the people of Iraq could somehow know every single name on those petitions and the names of every person who marches in the streets and every "human shield," along with the names of every member of every anti-war organization and the names of every government official in France, Germany, Russia and China.
I wish all 25 million Iraqis would know these people, these "enlightened" members of the anti-war movement who proclaim themselves as defenders of the people of Iraq but who fall over themselves to prevent their freedom. The Iraqis should realize who is trying to secure their oppression.
Nathan Clark opinion@kansan.com
What these protesters may not understand is that the people of Iraq are fully aware of the movement and its intentions and what will happen if it succeeds.
There will be no more hope of liberty or democracy, no more hope of freedom. The people of Iraq will continue to live in a society in which dissenters are murdered, family members disappear for no reason, and thousands of children die each year because their leader refuses to feed them.
This is hardly a vision of peace. Surely, the people of Iraq are praying that the protesters, some of whom risk their lives to ensure that the innocent will continue to suffer, will fail.
For as these protesters step up their efforts in the name of defending Iraq, the people of Iraq are responding differently. According to an Associated Press report, allied forces in the newly liberated city of Safwan in southern Iraq were greeted warmly and enthusiastically by Iraqi
civilians, some crying tears of joy. Chanting in Arabic, cries of "Amerikit! Amerikit!" rose up among them. Soon a Major in the U.S. Army led a chant of "Iraqis! Iraqis!" with his troops and the townspeople.
What a scene that must have been!
Iraqi cheering for the United States. Americans cheering for Iraq. These demonstrations convey the soul of a people horribly oppressed for far too long, revealing something infinitely more powerful and meaningful than the empty cries of "No blood for oil" or "Bush is a terrorist" from the herds of protesters. Tasting freedom for the first time, the people of Iraq know who to thank.
Across the country, our troops are being greeted not with "Die, infidel" but instead with "What took you so long?"
Clearly, most Iraqis do not see the United States and its allies as imperialists or oil whores, but as liberators who helped save them from a mass murderer. As we now see pictures on television of the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack flying next to the flag of Iraq, and as we see our soldiers side by side with jubilant Iraqi civilians tearing down statues and posters of Saddam, it is obvious how the people of Iraq feel about our country's actions.
They know who is really on their side.
Nathan Clark is a Kingman sophomore in journalism.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Protests influence decisions worldwide
On any given day in the Free for All, there are the inevitable comments. "I'm sick of all the protesters," "Mizzou sucks."
Granted, Mizzou does suck.
But condemning protesters is rude, lazy and unpatriotic. Americans' right and desire to protest is one of the true strengths of our democracy.
This could not be further from the truth.
One common sentiment is that protests in Lawrence are futile because we are in a small town in the Midwest.
It was in small towns that Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth caught attention for appearing at polling places, demanding ballots.
The civil rights movement gained its strength from small-town protests and sit-ins 80 years later.
And let's not forget our Midwest neighbor of Topeka and Brown v. the Board of Education, which was a landmark in equality for all Americans.
Indeed, a town like Lawrence is a perfect place to make a difference.
Instead of sitting at home complaining about protesters, we should all be getting involved in voicing our opinions, whatever those opinions may be.
During the current debate over war, there have been a number of demonstrations, both in support and in protest of the war. The Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice hosts a weekly anti-war rally, at noon every Saturday in front of the Douglas County Courthouse.
The recent Taco Bell protest is another example of conscientious protesting.
Demonstrations such as these are vital to our democracy. As citizens of this country, we have the invaluable responsibility of influencing public policy and making sure that the needs of all the people are represented.
We are a vital part of this nation's checks and balances system.
Thomas Jefferson once said, "Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty." We have the opportunity to stop being lethargic and start making a difference — not just in Lawrence, but throughout the world.
Mark Lyda for the editorial board