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Editor Defends Wire News
We had quite a few verbal darts thrown at us after Monday's lead editorial ("UDK Can't Promise Coverage of All Short News Items"), and yesterday the first written reaction came to the Daily Kansan newsroom.
Since it matches in substance the thinking of most of the other persons who disagreed with us—and made it known—we'll print it in full and then try to meet the challenges it contains.
Dear Mr. Stewart;
In regard to your editorial concerning too many stories for the UDK to handle. I would like to make a suggestion. I too, like the associate professor of astronomy, have tried on occasion to have various news items and announcements published for one of the religious groups on the campus. Like his, mine also have been lost in your big "shuffle."
I suggest that the UDK quit trying to be a "big" paper and stick to the campus level. It seems to me that the UDK fills one-half to three-fourths of its 'precious' space with national and international news items from the lines of the United Press. I don't think you give them justice. I personally don't read them, I find that the local paper and the Kansas City Star fulfill my needs for national and international news. The UDK doesn't fulfill my needs for campus news.
By sticking to the campus level, I believe that the UDK would do a better job in training the students and really performing a service to the student. (Also consider your subscribers off the campus, they want to know what's "going on" on the campus—not in Washington.)
Sincerely yours,
Paul M. Malone
Engineering sophomore
P. S.-Mr. Stewart-If you so happen to get a wild hair to print this, I request that you correct my English, spelling, form and etc. You needn't follow with your noted wile cracks either. This is a little more than a personal gripe I think it's a suggestion worthy of thought.
Notice, readers, no wise cracks.
We want to give this a square answer.
However, we fear that when
it's too hard, we'll be more
disequilibrated than before.
Mr. Malone enclosed a copy of Monday's Daily Kansan with his letter. It was marked up with red crayon, presumably to indicate the stories which he thought might bet- have been replaced by local copy.
Some of the stories might have been shortened, one or two might even have been dropped. However, if Mr. Malone had been editor of the Daily Kansan on Monday, he would have killed the McCarthy story and the story on the reaction
of the South to the segregation decision by the Supreme Court.
We grant you that our feelings may be a matter of personal taste rather than objective news judgment, but we think the space we squandered on these stories was earned by their importance. The McCarthy story marked the first move made by Big show toazzle the big bad wolf. The South's reaction to the segregation decision was, we think, by far the most important element of the whole situation.
Now comes the paradox. We think he's right. The Daily Kansan invariably carries more wire news than its readers want to have. We realize it, and we appreciate how much feeling there is against this policy, but it isn't going to change. And here's why:
Incidentally, the Kansas City Star had already gone to press before that particular story came across the wire. This indicates that our readers can't always rely on the Star et al. for national and international news.
The Daily Kansan is a laboratory for students in the School of Journalism. Students who staff it are interested primarily in putting out a newspaper as a newspaper should be put out. This means we must attempt to simulate the conditions that exist in the environment of the "big" papers mentioned in Mr. Malone's letter. Often, this means our product is not what our consumers are asking for.
And for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, we stick our necks out so far as to state without hesitation that we think the segregation story far outweighed any other material in the Kansan that day. We would have run it automatically before any local story short of the assassination of the entire sophomore class.
If we balanced the news material in the Daily Kansan in favor of all local news,we would be training in an unreal manner.The paper would soon resemble an eight-page society sheet.
If you egree with our thinking on these page one wire stories we carried, you still may side with Mr. Malone's view as to the amount of wire news we carried elsewhere in the paper.
What we're trying to say, without stepping on too many toes, is that the first function of the UDK is to train students in all the affairs of running a newspaper. Its second function is to serve the campus.
To demonstrate that our unfortunate tendency to recognize wire news, as more important than something right under our noses is not so insane as it might seem, we ask that our readers check the Lawrence Journal-World's six front pages any week, measure the amounts of wire news vs. local copy, and then tell us why they ran so much stuff from the Associated
Press when at least three-fourths of the material from the Kangan City, Sla.
And so, the battle will rage on up here on the Hill.
We wish many of the persons who have items they would like to see in the Daily Kansan would ask themselves this question; is the item a piece of news, in the real sense of news as being interesting and timely to most readers, or is it an announcement—a message directed to the few members of a particular club?
Again we underline this one point. The students who publish the University Daily Kansan do not wish it to become a boundless bulletin board for the use of a hundred club secretaries who wish to avoid sending out a dozen postcards. Whenever space permits, and a story's new value is sufficient, we are glad to try to run it.
—Tom Stewart,
Executive Editor
...LETTERS...
To the editor:
With reference to a recent Kansasan comment, we think that the students who should get pinched in the turnstiles are those who pinch reserve books needed by other students and then sneak out the "no exit" way over the turnstiles.
Do the editor:
Director of Libraries
In the long run the University would save money. It must cost approximately a hundred dollars every time they hire a crew of painters to unpaint Uncle Jimmy. Two or three paint free years and the balcony will be paid for. I further recommend that the job of designing and construction to the KU Engineers, even though they might turn in the low bid. The reason for this is obvious, of course.
I have a solution to the Jimmy Green Statue problem. I propose that the University spend a few thousand dollars to construct a second story balcony behind the pillars of Green Hall. Uncle Jimmy and his friend could be enthroned thereon, thus creating a bit of difficulty for the "Engineer's Boy Painter, and Tar-Feather Sound."
As for the Junior Lawyers who might ask, "What about the pigeons, man, what about the pigeons?" Well, soap and water are far more economical than paint remover.
John W. Switzer College senior
Robert Vosper
Short Ones
What with seven-page statements being read and points of order being raised, some of the more caustic student council members are saying that the POGO-MSP delaying tactic must be McCarthy-engineered.
University of Kansas Student Newspaper News Room KU 251 Ad room KU 376 Member Editor Assn. Inland Daily Press Editor Assn. Associated Collegiate Press Assn. Represented by the National Advertising Mail Subscription rates: $8 a semester or $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester if lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University holidays and examination periods. Entered second class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at office under address of March 1, 1919.
UNIVERSITY DAILY Bansan
Editorial editor Don Tice
Assistants Letty Lemon,
RUSINESS STAFF
EDITORIAL STAFF
Business mgr. ... Ann Alnsworth
mgr. ... Rudy Bates
Nat. adv. mgr. ... Rodney Davis
Classified adv. mgr. ... Edmond Bartlett
Circulation mgr. ... Wendell Sullivan
mgr. ... James Taylor
NEWS STAFF
Page 2 University Daily Kansan Friday, May 21.1954 LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibles
Executive editor Tom Stewart
Managing editors Tom Shannon
Sam Teaford, Ker
Bronson, Stam Hamilton
News Editor Elizabeth Wolfe
Sports editor Dana Leblendog
Society editor Karen Hilmer
Assistant Nancy Neville
News advisor C. M. Pickett
"Since in the past I've taught this for five hours credit—it probably seems like a lot of work for a two-hour course."
Publick Occurrences BOTH FORREIGN AND DOMESTICK
Friday, May 21, 1954
LOCAL
The Big Seven all-sports trophy will go to KU this year. Reasor Both the Jayhawker tennis and golf teams are rated good enoug to win the league titles, as is the track team. These three champion ships will give KU more than enough points to win the trophy.
There may be a new sorority on the University campus next fall. A national group is diligently petitioning for admittance.
After the strong opposition voiced at the recent city commission meeting against dancing where beer is sold inside the city limits, there isn't much chance that the argument will be brought before the commission again in the near future.
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A student forum to discuss current problems in an organized but informal manner is a possibility. It will be started by the Forensic league if it happens.
. . .
NATIONAL
The Army-McCarthy hearings probably will resume next week. The GOP undoubtedly believes the hearings must go on to reach some sort of a conclusion, if it is able to salvage anything out of the face-losing episode.
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It may sound ridiculous, but some communities in the South may do away with public schools entirely rather than having Negroes and whites in the same schools. Resentment is strong against the Supreme Court decision.
The Attorney General may have a housecleaning in his department within the next few weeks. Without doubt he has been hearing much about Sen. McCarthy's so-called spy system in the Justice department, and that pressure is likely to bring action.
INTERNATIONAL
France is about due to ask the U.S. for a definite commitment on the amount of aid in planes and other war material that we will be ready to give if the Indochina war reaches emergency status.
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Several high level conferences are in order for U.S. officials on the Guatemala problem. Communist-led strikes are crippling the country, a situation that won't be improved by shipment of Russian weapons to that nation.
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's opposition, the West German Free Democratic party, might try to send a delegation to Moscow next month to negotiate a trade agreement. Such a move would create a furor in the West German government.
The U.S. gained new strength in Asia through its plan to furnish military equipment to Pakistan. The agreement won't help relations with India, however, since that nation has been squabbling with Pakistan over the border state of Kashmir.