4
Thursday, October 5, 1972
University Daily Kansan
Media News Deficiency
Tuesday evening Pierre Salinger charged that radio and television news coverage, and to a degree, newspaper coverage, only make it the talk of the town. It provides a full understanding of the events in the news. Salinger is right.
Daily the public is assailed by news coverage that claims for itself the distinction of being extensive, accurate, first, comprehensive, and deep in background material. In truth, this coverage is nothing more than a mere assemblage of, as Salinger labeled them, "blips."
The radio and television news programs, and for that matter the newspaper headlines, report only a small fraction and pictures aspects of the news.
Television concentrates on that particle of the news that will make a good picture: 15 seconds of a campaign speech, 25 seconds of beauty queens, 45 seconds of demonstrators, 12 seconds of supporters. Then it puts all the good, appealing pictures together and claims to have "covered" the candidate's speech.
Radio concentrates on that aspect of the news that will make a good audio impact: the speech's brief flashes of rhetorical brilliance, the responses of the crowd, the well-turned phrases, the controversial-sounding remarks. All these impressive sounds, when bound together constitutes the depth of radio coverage.
Thus, in the end, television broadcasts a lot of good pictures and radio a lot of pretty and interesting sounds, but neither contributes very much to the public's accurate understanding of news. They merely give us the most general idea of what happened: we know there was a speech and who
spoke. The electronic media usually
involved the rest of the story unloved.
This shortcoming of radio and television would have little significance if the public were willing to go elsewhere to search out the rest of the story, the information they need to make intelligent judgments.
The public, however, isn't very inclined to sacrifice much time to the task of understanding national and international affairs; most people are far too preoccupied with their personal lives to devote large blocks of time to the emotionally unrewarding task of searching out an understanding of the world situation. Most college people, at least, would rather spend four hours standing in line for Elton John tickets than spend two hours listening to Pierce Salinger.
This, perhaps is as it should be. It is unfortunate, however, that the public, during those few minutes it is willing to devote to national and international variability attracted to the superficiality of radio and television news.
The media has interfered with the public search for understanding and information by being too attractive, too entertaining, by diverting attention away from the dull and unappealing complexities of government. The American public has deserted its responsibility to remain well-informed by surrendering its attention to the distended trifles which dominate broadcast news.
The founding fathers' justification for embarking upon the experiment of limited democracy has disintegrated: the American people are no longer the well-informed public they were.
James J. Kilpatrick
WASHINGTON -The great curtains swap apart, the clerk invoked divine assistance, and suddenly, as if a magician had conjured them up, the nine men in black appeared at their high-backed chairs. The opening of the door was for those who love the high court, and this week was something special.
Oyez, Oyez, All Rise
For the first time in five years, the U.S. Supreme Court assembled whole, healthy and, subject to that same divine preremption, needed for the next nine months. It promises to be a memorable term.
You have to look back 170 years, to the time when the Court was young, and indifferently regarded, and hard-put to find much to do, to find a place for apprehensions of these past five years. There was the retirement of Earl Warren, the affair of Abe Fortas, the nomination of Warren Burger, the bitter fights over Clement Haysnorth and G. Harrold Blackmun, the effort to impach William Douglas, the illness of Thurgood Marshall, the deaths of Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan, the confirmation of Lewis Powell and William Rehquist. For an institution with such a history has gone through an earthquake time.
Now the dust settles. At the
close of the last term in June, the clerk listed 457 cases still pending on the docket. Since then, another 409 appeals have been filed. The Court's workload is mounting astronomically; Ten years ago, the court dismissed 130 of the 177-2 term saw more than 4,500. Largely because of this flood of petitions, most of which have to be affirmed or reversed summarily, the number of cases actually argued continues to decline. There simply is not time to hear the oral arguments and to write the formal opinions that ought to be written. Ours is a litigious nation, and is where litigation ends.
Out of the mountain of pending cases, probably 150 to 160 cases will be chosen for formal hearing. More than a hundred already have been selected. The Denver school case, potentially of even greater impact than the original case of 1984, commands greatest interest, but the range of the law is infinite. It is hard to imagine an area of human concern not touched upon here.
The Court plainly is divided critically on the matter of abortion. It will hear reargument this term on cases testing the laws of Texas and Georgia, but臀uB against the laws of abortion laws of Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina and Mississippi as well.
In the abortion cases, the Court will have to weigh some profoundly difficult questions of constitutional law. In Roe v. Wade, for example, it is contended that "Texas abortion laws violate the First Amendment, women and married couples of their right, secured by the Ninth Amendment, to choose whether to have children."
The Ninth Amendment is known as the "forgotten amendment." Was it intended to
make any such right secure?
Other issues are trivial in fact but monumental in law. At the end of the term in June, no fewer than 35 cases were pending in the courts of Ohio, Florida and Alabama see "I am Curious (Yellow)"? Can the people of Tennessee see "Without a Stitch"? Is the magazine, "Screw", obscure in these cases? Are Massachusetts? In a nation grappling with vastly greater problems, the questions might
seem to have no meaning. Yet they do; they demand that the Court once again examine the facts and prove that there is freedom of free speech and free press.
So the term begins. And a man is a dull clod indeed if he covers the Court and fails to sense a quickening of the pulse and a catch in his throat, as the nite shimmers, when applying a rule of law to the concerns that divide a free people in a free land.
(C) The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Jack Anderson
Fat Cats Succor Sparkman
WASHINGTON - For most of his 36 years in Congress, Alabama's John Sparkman has championed the understudied, the underfed and the underected. He writes the articles for the poor are legendary.
But now the 72-year-old senator, his kindly face beginning to show the ravages of age, his straight shoulders beginning to sag, has become the tarnished object of special interest he once fought.
These latter-day friends in banking, savings and loans, real estate, construction and the like are raising a huge campaign kitty to save his Senate seat. Paul Ryan is president him is President Nixon's former Postmaster-General. Winton "Red" Blount. Outed, the out
come could determine whether the Republicans will win control of the Senate.
Sparkman is chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which holds legislative power over the industries that have befriended him. He is also a feisty, consumer-minded Senator William Proxmile, D-Wis., to the chairmanship.
Not only do the fat cats want to keep Proxmire out of this powerful show. They also want to show their appreciation to Sparkman for his benevolence toward them.
Moreover, Sparkman is a member of the small Business Association, all of their industries, but other enterprises from pharmaceuticals to hardware stores to hospital building.
Thus, the special interests are filling his campaign coffers as evidenced by incomplete but still substantial filings under the new campaign reporting law. As of September 12, some $580 million was awarded in $1190 gross receipts came from the financial, real estate, construction, pharmaceutical and related labor interests.
The tone of the fund raising is evident from some of the letters going out to builders and bankers.
"We in the real estate business," Birmingham builder Art Rice has written, for example, to his business colleagues, "won't live long enough to see another Alabamian
in this particular position of seniority, influence and power. In my opinion, Senator Sparkman can pick up the telephone and account for more in five minutes or account could do in five years . . .
"He has done more than any other single man to help our real estate profession and now he needs our help so that he might continue in this most sensitive position, but it is to be the most powerful the United States Senate . . The campaign will take $500,000 . . ."
Regardless of our personal party affiliations or our choice concerning other national offices, our industry owes it to itself to support the Sparkman campaign "und first and foremost."
Another solicitation letter from Brimingham developer Richard Sexton pleads, "I urge you to help me in my search for returning the enclosed pledge card with the most generous contribution you can make. . ."
These are sad commentaries on a great Senate career.
Footnote: Commenting on the contributions, a spokesman for Sparkman said, "When you speak of banking, savings and loan, construction, real estate and related industries, you're talking about some 65 per cent of the national debt." The senator has dealt with every legislative matter on its merits and solely on its merits."
Copyright, 1972. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Readers Respond
Landlord
To the Editor:
Renters,More Contraception . . .
During this past summer, a number of comments appeared in the Kansas concerning landlords' damage-deposits to students. I have known students who have been ripped off by their landlords and probably continue to probably continue. However, I wonder how many complaints might be eliminated by conclusion of an apartment by the renter?
In July 1970, another graduate student and I moved into one floor of an old house in Lawrence. When joined by a third student in the same room, we entered the interior of our rooms. Our landlord, David Evans, supplied the paint and we supplied the labor—it took us a weekend to do the job. We were able to avoid avoided marring the walls as much as possible, although we did put up numerous posters. We were careful not to do anything that might jeopardize the $100 damage-deposit.
We moved out of the house in July 1972, after two years oc-
cupacity. Before we left, we spent several hours cleaning the stove, refrigerator, walls, floors, etc. We did all of this and then replaced (free of charge) several chairs that had suffered through normal wear and tear. We recently received $100 from Evans.
During our two years in the house we avoided hassling the landlord and his wife, and they left us alone. We had parties of course, and saw to it that no neighbor was ever kept awake by an overly loud stereo or a speaker. They entered into the street. The "live and live" liche is old and tired, but I suspect it describes one of the reasons we got all of our back.
Few landlords enjoy being bothered by phone calls from irate neighbors or police, unjustified complaints from renters or being forced to consider the damage to a vacated apartment.
It may be that Evans is an exceptionally reasonable landlord. Or perhaps my roommates and I were compulsive clean-
freaks. Whatever the reason, we got all of our money back.
Dennis Maloney
Portland, Ore.
Graduate Studen
Contraception
To the Editor:
Dr. Bertha Bell prepared a brief article for the Kansan trapeptide methods in common use at present. It has come to my attention in several meetings over the past six months that a wounded is aroused by its content.
It is our understanding that these articles are to be brief, but comprehensive enough to cover the subject matter, or merely cerring the selected topic. In the attempt to compact complex statements and exposition, the danger of shearing away qualifying statements and exposition is greatest. Answer questions and allay fears.
By Sokoloff
statements and to suggest that where further doubt exists a personal conference with the person is the most logical answer.
Blood clots occur in the veins of both men and women not under the care of a doctor, and may specifically in the veins of women in connection with the phenomena of pregnancy. The amount amounts to a small decimal in most large series. The use of contraceptive devices accounts for a percentage as mentioned in the article, but due to the small magnitude of the number multiplied by this factor, the total number of persons at risk is small. This risk compares with the other risks of pregnancy.
Griff and the Unicorn
Delayed menstruation and possible sterility may follow the use of contraceptive drugs. It is important that a patient initially demonstrate menstrual irregularity may be at increased risk, but this outcome can be confirmed with complete certainty. The prescribing doctor should discuss this situation with the individual nurse or help to evaluate her needs.
more useful in this group. Obviously it has been successfully used in unilaborous persons on the KU campus.
As a major premise, the use of all powerful drugs is attended by the risk of side reaction and this should be taken into account for paid anticipation benefits. The medical doctor constantly weighs the risks and benefits and to derive from the drug in question, final decision must rest upon accurate diagnosis of the patient in regard to the patient's needs and the toxicity of the drugs. Acceptance then rests upon the fact that patients who believe that the risk price to be paid is commensurate with the risk price to be received in the case of contraceptives the public believes, and probably quite properly. Thus the price is usually recommended however that the price be kept within acceptable limits by the constant and intense efforts of the physician and patient.
The use of intrauterine devices is extended by some factors of failure, including a serious sertion after childbirth is usually conceded to the mother, and a worker finds it
We witness evidence of abnormal clotting phenomena and intolerance to the intrauterine environment in our Student Health Service. Accurate and prompt reporting by the patient and aggressive treatment on the part of the doctor should prevent hazards to a bare minimum.
Universal Press Syndicate 1972
Raymond A. Schwegler, M.D.
Director, Student Health Service
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