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Tuesday. September 11, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN commen
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
One Shortage Abates
The shortage of non-Watergate news at home is abating.
Consider the mounting evidence:
Everybody's back to work, more or less. Vital executive positions here and throughout the country are showing new signs of life, after the indecisive long, cold summer of 73.
The President is back in the eye of the media with word of conviction, however unpleasant, decisions those regarding the scandal.
Congress has returned from summer holiday and is actively preparing to address much of the year's crucial legislation.
The rich broth bowl of Kansas politics is being stirred anew by the state's own supersleuth attorney general.
And this university's honeymoon with its new chancellor and athletic director seems to be surviving its first tests.
Across the board, the highest prizes in season of delayed decision making
It's a good thing. The caution, doubt and pervasive secrecy that accompanied the many recent months of postponed decisions could not have lasted much longer without irreparable damage.
Here at KU, Chancellor Dykes' decision to have the tenure committees release their heretofore secret reports is a sign of encouraging movement in a desirable direction.
It is also the first solid indication that the new chancellor intends to put his words regarding communication into action.
The chancellor's decision should be regarded of the report contents.
In the broader context of the nation, it should be obvious by now that the public relations art alone will not get the business of the day done.
Public relations cannot resolve an energy crisis. Or an environmental crisis. Or food shortages. Or inflation.
The day when some Americans believed “pr” could solve what I have termed news shortages (i.e. the need to find the most mittal decisions) is ending here.
Whether one listens to the President's decisions regarding usage of energy resources (as gloomy as those decisions may be for our environment) or to this level, we would be ordering the release of a document some would have held secret, the message is clear:
Let's get on with things.
It's about time. Some of us had
to ponder to ponder the post-
Wakkerlagslegende.
Fortunately, it looks like there'll be more to deal with than heated controversy surrounding the switch to the metric system
—C.C.Caldwell Editorial Editor
By MARY RUSSELL (C) 1973, The Washington Post
'Silent Censorship' in Porno Ruling
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court decision redefining obsessivity and allowing obsessity cases to be decided on the basis of factors such as community standards" is barely two months old.
But Pandora's box of confusion has already popped open as courts try to determine what community standards are and how to apply the new ruling.
The Georgia State Supreme Court ruled the movie "Carnal Knowledge," a Hollywood production directed by Mike Ganski and offensive to community standards.
But while "Last Tango in Paris" starring Marlon Brando has been challenged in courts in Albany, Lynbrook, R.I., and Oklahoma City, so far no court has found it offensive to the community. The Alabama case still awaits a final ruling.
When the Supreme Court decision, Miller vs. California, was first handed down,
IN CLEVELAND and Boose Playlift's centerfold nude of George Maharis caused the magazine to be yanked from the newstands. And in Albermare County, Va., and scores of other small towns and rural communities mostly through the South and Midwest, local authorities ordered Playboy off the newstands.
prosecutors headed first for the newsstands and porn book stores.
But so far Bert Joseph of the Playboy Foundation in Chicago, said, "There have been virtually no prosecutions and have no successful prosecutions."
"It's not the prosecutions, but the threats and intimidations of dealers and wholesalers that's a problem. Dealers for the most part have relied on the literary contents of the magazine and kept the magazine in commerce. But some have already withdrawn the magazine from the stands under threat of changes," Joseph said.
Gerald Phillips, United Artists
Purity or Prurience
By EVERETT T. MOORE
BY EVERETT MOORE
Special to the Los Angeles Times
The history of censorship is replete with instances of the seemingly innocent regulation of works that have conflicted with prevailing community standards of morality. Almost inevitably, censorship based on moral principles impedes to a more immediate effect and only for their presumed immorality but for their political or social views.
Furthermore, important safeguards have been removed against dangerous restrictions on the dissemination of books and materials; this has been complied by granting to local communities the right to establish their own criteria as to what is good and proper for use, hear or view.
The fuerter following the Supreme Court's June 21 obscurity rulings has died down, but the fundamental issues remain. Many librarians in the United States have worried about the possible implications of those rulings in a new way, quietly something about them.
In his majority opinions, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger emphasized that the decisions were aimed only at hardcore pornography and not at "serious" works that hit the spirit, improve the mind, enhance human personality and develop character."
Nevertheless, the court's most recent efforts at defining what is "obscene" and therefore not protected under the First Amendment vague than the court's former guidelines.
The American Library Assn., acting through its Freedom to Read Foundation, has joined the Association of American Publishers in petitioning the Supreme Court to rehear its five decisions involving the First Amendment.
The result of such a law could be chaos.
Once again "Tropic of Cancer" might be unavailable in one city but easily found in surrounding areas.
Worse yet, the obscurity decisions that are of such great concern to librarians establish the following new guidelines for use of the library: they must be protected under the First Amendment:
"The phrase "utterly without redeeming social value" is rejected as a constitutional standard. Substituted for this is the test of "whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." (Under this principle, J. D. Salinger, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller and John Updike—not to mention ribald passages by the likes of Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson) The result is failing to meet Burger's standard that "serious works should "lift the spirit, improve the mind and develop character."
- No longer need a prosecutor present evidence in his attempt to convince a jury that a given work is obscene and, therefore, illegal.
On the local level, a jury would review each work according to the standards of the "average person of the community" and evaluate whether the years by qualified experts or by persons of recognized literary or artistic judgment and perception would be subordinated to the judgment or feelings of this "average person"—whoever and wherehe may
While a person is still entitled to possess any work in his home, he may not purchase, acquire or import—from any source—material deemed to be obcene.
spokesman whose company has "Last Tango," which calls it "silent censorship."
Those who would defend us from hardcore pornography must not be allowed to overrun our libraries, book shops and gallery galleries, nor to take away our rights under the First Amendment in their zeal to keep us pure.
(Everett T. Moore, an associate librarian at the University of California at Los Angeles, is vice president of the American Association's Freedom to Read Foundation.)
PHILLDS SAID district attorneys in some instances had refused to see the film but threatened to take exhibitors to court if they showed it.
"I'哭 me worried that in order to show a film these fellows have to take the risk of committing a crime. And it's totally sub-operative with what a jury or court will do?" Phillips said.
The other criteria for obscenity under the Miller decision are "whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work taken as a whole appeals to the prudent interests, whether the work depicts or describes in a patently offensive way sexual conduct, whether the work applicable state law, and whether the work taken as a whole serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
Prosecutors who first looked on the Miller decision as a hunting license are now looking at the potential consequences.
"THE FIRST RASH of seizures is over and prosecutors now seem to be waiting until more definitive decisions are handed down," Joseph said.
Ron Sabo, a lawyer and research supervisor for the National Legal Data Center on the Law of Obscenity in California, a project that researches obscency cases, said he had been telling prosecutors who called for advice in acting against him. The prosecutors and notperspecters. "Sabo said that if they asked him, he would advise them not to take on films like 'Last Tango' and magazines like Playboy.
"Although certian communities might find it offensive, that's not the sole test of obscurity. It would be hard to show that they have a talent to not have serious artistic or literary value."
Another reason that prosecutors have chosen to wait before seeking more arrests or convictions is in the Miller decision, which states that an individual depicted or described must be "specifically
defined by the applicable state law as written or authoritatively construed."
Since most state laws are not very specific and a good many use the old "national standard" of "butter without redeeming social value," appellate courts have been divided on whether present state laws apply or not.
But Justice Abraham Gellinoff of the York Supreme Court, a local trial court, ruled the state's civil statute on obscurity unconstitutional because it wasn't specific.
A three-judge panel in New Jersey ruled that state's oceans lay unconstitutional.
THE SUPREME COURT in Washington and the courts of appeals in California and Florida construed the Miller decision to mean that present state laws apply.
All of which means the state legislatures and even some local governments are scrambling to rewrite the laws to specify what acts they want to prohibit.
Chief Justice Warren Burger in his majority opinion gave an example of what a state statute might say to conform with the new standard.
THE STATUE COULD define for regulation, Burger said. "patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated" and "patently offensive representations or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions and lewd exhibitions of the senatus."
Sabo said he had been advising officials that the safest course would simply be to use the computer.
Lawyers who applaud or deplore the decision all agree that there will have to be further decisions by the Supreme Court before anything becomes clear.
Most expect that the Georgia Supreme Court rulings on "Carnal Knowledge" will be less than what was expected.
Meanwhile, groups such as the Playboy Foundation, the Association of American Publishers, the American Book Sellers Association, the Motion Picture Producers to form a media coalition to map strategy to fight the rulng.
When a Soviet supersonic jetliner blew up in Paris in June, it was front-page news around the world—except in the Soviet Union. Pravda, the leading paper there, printed only a 27-word story tucked away at the bottom of its book, revealed one of the rules of Soviet journalism: the more exciting the event, the less dramatic the coverage.
The Soviet Press
Nevertheless, the Soviet press is an enormous industry and an important force in the life of the country. Pravda has the world's largest circulation. Washington Missouri's independent Robert Kaiser conductor workings of the Soviet news business in a three-part series.
MOSCOW—The most dramatic airplane crash of the year occurred in Paris on June 3 when the Soviet Union's supersonic aircraft crashed at 300,000 spectators at the Paris air show.
The Washington Post
The Soviet press is an enormous industry and an important force in the life of the country. It is also a revealing example of how the military is owned—a world in which the dramatic crash of the most advanced Soviet airplane is worth 27 words, while in (Prairie that same day) a Communist party official's report on the explosion of some coal miners is worth 1,000 words.
A THOUSAND WORDS on the achievements of some coal miners, however, is perfectly normal. Such stories are meant to provide examples for other books about mining. It could do if they would just work a little harder. "Production propaganda"—a phrase coined by Lenin, the first Soviet journalist—is perhaps the single most
The next morning, the Washington Post carried a 1,000-word report on the crash on its front page. Pravda, the leading Soviet newspaper, told a story of the货车 story tucked away at, alay the very bottom of the street.
In fact, printing 27 words on the crash of the TU-144 in Paris required an exception to the official censor's rule. Most airplane crashes in this country are never reported at all. Nor, as a rule, are natural catastrophes, fires or crimes.
important product that Soviet journalists produce.
For a westerner, the most striking aspect of Soviet newspapers is their lack of interest in news. Reports on events that happened the day before, at home or abroad, take up only a small fraction of a Soviet paper, perhaps 15 per cent.
All major papers are prepared at least two days in advance, so when the editors of a morning paper come to work, say, on Tuesday morning, they already have copies of the paper. The next few small holes may be left for late official announcements or foreign news bulletins.
The front page seldom contains "front page news." It is usually a combination of official announcements, production updates and other topics that compel interest. Serious Soviet readers known that the biggest news often comes in the smallest and best-hidden packages as in the pages of newspapers.
Yet if Swiss papers strike a Westerner as odd—not to say boring—the are clearly performing the tasks expected of them in this society. The papers are widely read—Prada's circulation is 10 million, making it the world's biggest paper. They provide crucial information for communist party and government officials, conveying the importance on all major issue of the day. They establish the political atmosphere.
THE PAPERS THEMSELVES are modest. Providence and ivyda (the organs of government, respectively, usually appear in six pages, the other papers always in nine) are no advertisements in the national paper; they them a lot of room for printed material.
Photos are used sparingly, although the major papers carry daily feature pictures of citizens at work or play. Pictures of Soviet leaders are often retouched. Leonid Brezhney, whose hair is graying in real life, has no gray hair in Pravda.
The material that appears in the papers conforms to a formula that has changed very little in many years. It can be divided into these general categories:
—Production propaganda. This comes in many forms. The article about the coalminers who overfellured the plan is a typical example. Such stories relate in detail the work of a brigade of workers, naming its leaders, explaining its methods
Russian papers are prepared at least two days in advance carry much propaganda, little news, but are still widely read
of work, citing the statistics by which its accomplishments are inevitably measured
Izvestia did not mention news.
Lenin personally helped found
the first major Soviet papers.
After 55 years of Soviet communism there are nine national dailies of importance.
Examples of exemplary or deplorable behavior. A long article by the party secretary of a rural region may explain how farmers can track and encourage the harvest.
ANOTHER TYPICAL VARIANT is now appearing virtually daily on the front pages of the Soviet papers? an exhortation to farm workers to do the best possible job bringing in the harvest. The major daily papers have an exhortation on the front page almost every day, usually illustrated by a photo of workers on the job.
Vladimir Lenin began his revolutionary career as a journalist, working on the open war in the interior, on the stage in the early years of this era.
The founder of the Soviet state was a great believer in the power of the press—not its power to infiltrate it, but to organize and organize revolutionaries.
-Pravda, organ of the Communist party, circulation 10 million.
—Komsomolskaya Pravda, organ of the Young Communist League, 8.4 million.
Or the article may be critical, ridiculing
—Rural Life, a central committee paper on agricultural affairs, 7 million.
-Izvestia, organ of the government, 8 million.
Izvestia did not mention news
—Trud, organ of the trade unions, 6 million.
-Soviet Sport, a daily sports paper, 3.45 million.
—Krasnaya Zvesda (Red Star), organ of the Ministry of Defense, 2.65 million.
—Socialist Industry, an economic paper, 850,000.
a region whose farm machinery is all in bad repair or criticizing a local official for his work.
Soviet editors dispute the contention that they are mere conduits for the official line. They boast of the critical material they publish, and claim to be independent.
In fact, they appear to be cautiously independent within a limited sphere. No Soviet paper ever criticized a senior party leader of challenged the party line. But the papers regularly expose corruption or stunidity at lower levels.
IF A NEW FOREIGN minister is appointed in Italy, the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, will send him a congratulatory telegram, and the Italian ambassador to Moscow, and perhaps the texts of the telegrams will appear in the major newspapers.
-Official information. When the central committee of the communist party issues an order on, for example, "Measures to Insure the Timely Completion of the Harvest," it calls for the Sugar Beet Crop in 1973, almost every paper in the country publishes the full text.
A POPULAR FEATURE of this kind appears in Izvestia almost every week under the headline "Surging Stories." He told us in Uskomengogak who wanted to retire on pension. He had worked before the war on a state farm in territory occupied by the Nazis who apparently destroyed the farm's livestock. He also demanded that he present a certificate attesting that the war actually took place in that area, though even school children know the whole story." Izvestia reported. The newspaper with a chiding "red tape, cameras."
If a foreign statesman is visiting Moscow and meets with one of the top three Soviet leaders, an account of the meeting is usually front page news. If the visitor is entertained at a banquet, the papers will print all the toasts.
If Breznette makes a speech lasting several hours to mark some important occasion, the papers will publish the full text. Provincial leaders, sometimes the provincial leaders, sometimes at the expense of all other news, apart from the weather report and TV listings.
An official criticized in the press is expected to answer the attack and correct any wrongness.
- General information. Soviet papers carry all kinds of information, little of it 'news' by Western standards. Daily stories on the opening of new factories around the country, or the inauguration of new production lines are common. Educational writers may explain a classroom experiment in Armenia. A drama critic may describe the results of a production in Moscow. Occasional articles on sports appear in all the annals.
- Exerts contribute articles on social topics like illness, marriage or infant care. Readers may be treated to an exhaustive list of the most foreign travels of a Ukrainian dance troupe.
- Foreign news. The newest sections of Pravda and Ivzesta are their daily foreign news pages. A quarter to a third of these are devoted to dispatches from the socialist countries which usually read very much like the domestic "news".
The rest are accounts of world events and commentaries. Some are perfectly straightforward news stories. Soviet editors are talented at reducing a story to the minimum possible number of words while retaining key facts.
Some news dispatches contain a distinct slant. Acts by Israel are always "hostile, dangerous provocations" or something similar; in Indochina, "patriots" and "freedom fighters" are constantly overcoming "marionettes" and "imperialists."
The tone of foreign news is subject to abrupt changes. The best recent examples of this have been stories about West Germany and the United States, once the naval ships of Soviet propaganda, and now treated to much more sympathetic coverage.
Stories about America changed a few weeks before President Nixon came to Moscow in May, 1972. They've never reverted to the old, harsh tone.
(Next: The newspaper business is a big industry in the Soviet Union and like every other industry it works according to plan, which rules out much coverage of any news. But the nationalists are often frustrated by what they are prohibited from writing, but they lead a good life.)
To the Editor:
Readers Respond Review 'Lies'
The Kansan review of the Alman Brothers Band's best album, "Brothers and Sisters," was not only simpleimplemented and tasteless, but it also contained a subtle, intentional glued to earphones playing Donny Osmond records after his live review.
First of all, the lie. Weber wrote, "... enriching the holes in the band's make-up caused by death and drugs." Duane Allman and Berry Oakley both died in motorcycle accidents in no way related to drugs. So why did they wear masks? It was whispering about musicians' alleged drug usage, and then dip their talentless hands into deceased musicians' blood?
Secondly, Richard Betts has always been a peaking, red-hot lead guitarist, and anyone who does has his head up his ass can tell that his work on "Brothers and Sisters" is fabulous. The songs on the album have all the same rhythmic pattern. This gives the band a rich of kindness as evidenced by the superb dobro and piano licks in the song "Pony Boy."
Get rid of this sort of deceitful and snide评定, Kansan. He's just a gossip guy.
Charles Jones
Senior
Alexandria, Va.
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