A letter to Agnew
Dear Mr. Agnew:
With a copy pencil stuck over one ear and a notebook clutched in my hand, I began my reporting career. I was pretty raw, that chill September night when I set out on my first assignment. And I took it all pretty seriously.
The family gently poked fun at my hardboiled "just the facts" attitude. But I only smiled and continued to listen raptly to my journalism instructor who attempted to pound into our brains the difference between news stories and editorials.
The sheets of yellow paper on which I typed my news stories were returned to me with scribbled sarcastic comments in the margins: "Sez who?" "Name your sources." "That's only what you think. What's the facts?" And a lot more comments too volatile to print here.
We learned about "interpretive news stories." These weren't articles which merely paraded our own points of view. These were just like ordinary, objective news stories—only much longer, requiring exhausting legwork, and much more time spent in rewriting to make the meanings clear.
We were taught such cardinal rules as: "A reporter never writes editorials on a topic about which he is attempting also to write straight news stories." "A Kansan reporter never becomes involved in student politics, does not run for office and does not become active in political groups if he is writing about these same groups." "Dig. Look at all sides of each question." "What the reporter thinks doesn't count: his job is to reflect others' opinions, tie them together, make them coherent."
Our journalism instructors at the William Allen White School of Journalism stress ethics and responsibility. Fair representation for all
sides. I can remember during last semester's elections, for instance, when I spent several tedious hours measuring the Kansan column inches given to each political party to assure each group the same amount of space in the newspaper.
That is how they train journalists at the KU William Allen White School of Journalism. Not just newspaper journalists, but also those enrolled in radio, magazine and television sequences.
We don't always live up to those high standards we have been given. I can recall many times, when working in the "real" world for a "real" newspaper, being ordered to write a news story a certain way to please an advertiser, or a good friend of the publisher, or the editor's political bias. I am ashamed to say I have written several unfair news stories over the past few years.
And my fellow journalists in television, radio magazines—and all the other media—make mistakes too.
But I'm inside the news business, even if I still am kind of raw, and I know that the majority of newsmen and women attempt to be fair and accurate in their presentation of the news. When we are not, it is our own responsibility to make changes.
For the minute any kind of outside pressure is put on journalists—a threat, a hint of censorship, a demand to present of one particular viewpoint—the newsman's entire perspective goes a little bit cockeyed.
A newsman can only write and broadcast freely when he is read and listened to freely. Without any demands or restraints other than those within himself.
Joanna K. Wiebe
Newspaper distortion
By MIKE SHEARER Arts & Reviews Editor
One of the major functions of a newspaper always should be to alert readers not to believe everything they read in a newspaper.
The distortion of war reporting has been less in this decade than perhaps ever before, but the distortion is still pronounced and has a propagandistic effect.
By now, everyone has surely realized that anyone killed by US troops in Vietnam is listed as a Communist, when probably the better share would call themselves Vietnamese Nationalists. American headlines have announced the number of "enemy" soldiers killed with little hesitation, never pondering over the question, "Whose enemy?"
The latest copy of Chicago Journalism Review has printed a list of euphemisms invented by the US Army information bureau and picked up unquestionably by America's sheepish newspapers. Here are a few:
Viet Cong tax collectors are Viet Cong Extortionists. South Vietnamese tax collectors are of course called tax collectors as fits their public service position.
The Nation Liberation Front is the Viet Cong. South Vietnam is The Republic of Vietnam, while The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (its official name) is North Vietnam.
A mercenary is a Civilian Irregular Defense Group volunteer.(as long as he's on the South's side).
With the continued help of America's press, Nixon should have little trouble rallying the misled "forces of virtue" against the "Peking-Moscow forces of evil."
Hamburger Hill is officially Hill 937.
A Viet Cong deserter is a rallier or returnee.
And US troop withdrawal is redeployment
But when human life is involved, black and white reasoning is a far greater sin than dissent. Isn't it?
Readers' write
To the editor:
In the study of mass communications, David Manning White's "gatekeeper" theory is a topic of considerable concern. White's study has to do with the function of individual journalists in the communications network and their responsibility to present clear, factual and reliable information to the reader or listener.
Assuming that the news media do have the responsibility to the public of presenting complete and factual information, the Kansan has blundered. A story appearing in the November 11, Kansan reported the results of an AURH survey that indicates 561 out of 625 respondents are in favor of building a satellite student union in the Daisy Hill area. The story also stated that 499 out of 625 questionaires indicated the respondents are willing to pay $6.50 to have a union in the Daisy Hill-Oliver-Naismith area.
What the Kansan failed to report might give the survey more validity than it deserves. The Kansan did not say that 5,000 questionaires were intended to be circulated, less than 4,000 actually were distributed, three dormitories did not participate in the survey and that only 24 hours were given to reply to the questionaires.
Therefore, the results reported by the Kansan may very well be misleading, and several questions ought to be asked about both the survey and the Kansan's reporting effort. Most likely the 12 percent of dormitory residents who voluntarily responded in only 24 hours are not a representative sample of all residence hall students. This group is probably far more intense about the satellite union issue than the average dorm resident.
Hopefully little emphasis will be put on this survey if an item is used in analysis is what the Kansan reported. If there is more information, the Kansan has shirked one of its responsibilities as a member of the free press in not presenting the total picture. If what was reported is all that is known, then either the survey should have not been published or an attempt to show strengths and weaknesses of the survey should have been made.
A second deficiency of this story was the lack of important background information. Where is the site proposed by Frank Zilm? Where is the originally planned site?
If the Kansan wants to attain recognition as a reliable daily newspaper, the first thing it should do is accept the responsibility that goes with this position. It should then strive to maintain a high level of responsibility to its readers.
Don Hunter
Abilene graduate student
Pam Bond
Tulaa, Okla., graduate studen
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