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Friday, September 13, 1968
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5
Press draws praise and criticism
The Fourth Estate, the press, was attacked on two fronts last month for entirely different purposes.
While news coverage of the Democratic convention in Chicago was being subjected to harrassments, nearly 500 journalism educators meeting at the University of Kansas examined means of making all news coverage more effective.
The 51st annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism (AEJ) moved beyond the recruiting and training of responsible journalists into areas of how to handle ticklish news-public relations situations.
The journalism administrator was studied in relation to the academic revolution, then was reversed and explored as the student protest movement in relation to mass media and communications teachers.
Lloyd Norman, Pentagon reporter for Newsweek, and Robert Pearman, national-world editor for the Kansas City Star, discussed press coverage of the Vietnam war, noting that 19 correspondents have been killed. Roscoe Born, associate editor of the National Observer, Washington, D.C., spoke about "wolfpack" reporting as substitute for thorough research. "The Use of Political Polling in Political Reporting" and "Problems in the Coverage of Civil Disorders" are two more of the many topics discussed.
Dr. Walter Menninger of Topeka, a psychiatrist and member of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, spoke on "The Roots of Violence: Some Implications for the Mass Media."
"Dehumanization allows people to do things to other people because the others are not 'people,'" he said. "To the hippies and yippies in Chicago, police are not people; they are cops. And to the police, the demonstrators are scum."
He cited one of the nation's ills as "the insecurity of so many people who have to believe we are always right, that we have never ered in our relations with other governments and that we are error-free."
He called violence a communication of last resort that generally occurs when more civilized communication fails.
Sitting on a four-member panel to consider the student protest movement at the convention's final session, Dr. Menninger said, "Too often professors teach subjects, not people.
many professors are not trained to get feedback from their students." Although the panel included no student, it unanimously sided with the student voice in this movement.
The Rev. Ronald Sundbye of First United Methodist Church, in Lawrence, suggested many adults are too repelled by the appearance of some students to listen to them. As a result, they have no understanding of what students are trying to say.
Several convention commentators—including John Colburn, editor and publisher of the Wichita Eagle and Beacon—pointed to the humanities as the aspect of journalism education that needs greatest attention. Colburn included the basic sciences in his indictment.
Many films are offered this year
Movie fans in the KU family will have lots of options this year.
So far 121 dates have been scheduled by the established campus film series: Student Union Activities' classical series, 24; SUA's popular series, 82; SUA orientation week programs, 4; the Universities series, mostly foreign films. 11.
The total will be boosted by the new KU Film Club's offerings, which were extensive in the spring semester. tee of the Highway Research Board of the National Science Foundation. Also several academic departments now occasionally sponsor films.