4A
Wednesday, October 16, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
/
VIEWPOINT
Prepaid tuition programs can restrict parent options
Sixteen states already have more than 500,000 students enrolled in programs that guarantee paying college tuition if the students' families begin contributing to the program when their children are born.
The Kansas Legislature soon may consider offering residents the opportunity to prepay tuition to in-state schools.
While a prepaid tuition program would allow thousands of Kansas families to conveniently save for their children's education, participants should be aware of similar programs' limitations.
Since the late 1980s, some parents have saved for college by contributing to investment pools in their state. The pool's assets then are invested by the program, typically in high-grade stocks and bonds. So far, the returns from these investments have met or exceeded the skyrocketing cost of tuition. Each state assumes the risk of investment that individuals normally would incur.
For some families, however, enrolling in the program may be a bad idea. The money can be used only at participating institutions, usually public schools in the state in which the student lives. If he or she decides to attend college elsewhere, most plans return only the principal plus 3 percent to 5 percent interest. Some financial planners argue that parents may be more successful investing for college on their own.
Ultimately, parents must choose between guaranteed tuition to an in-state institution and flexibility, both in investment and school choice. Regardless of prepaid tuition programs' limitations, the Legislature should work to provide Kansas parents with the opportunity to choose the best investment strategy for their children's future.
LEWIS GALLOWAY FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Talk radio shows promote public opinions, not actions
Talk radio shows often are vehicles for public outrage. But efforts to censor their content would undermine freedom of speech.
recently in Orlando, Fla., outrage about the murder of a 5-year-old-girl inspired vigilantism in Arba Earl Barr. Barr is accused of murdering Donald McDougall, who was convicted of killing 5-year-old Ursala Assaid. On a WTKS-FM talk show episode in Orlando commemorating the anniversary of Ursala's death, a caller, infuriated by the case, allegedly offered a $1,000 bounty for the head of McDougall. Now that McDougall is dead, the radio talk show is being blamed. The responsibilities of all radio talk shows consequently are being questioned.
Eve Krupinski, co-author of a book about Ursala's death, told The New York Times that the talk show "was just a vehicle for airing the anger." Isn't talk radio designed to elicit listeners' emotions? Talk radio shows are successful in part because they provide people with methods to vent. Although many topics discussed on talk radio are controversial, the shows allow responses from listeners who have a wide range of opinions. This is freedom of expression, one of the major ideas on which this country was founded.
Talk radio is not to blame for the death of a killer in Orlando. Censoring talk radio would endanger the fundamental premises of free speech in the United States. Thomas Mann, a German novelist, once said "It is impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or available." Talk radio provides that forum.
NICK ZALLER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
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CRAIG LANG
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Shawn Trimble/ KANSAN
Liberal-saturated media should be more objective
Bob Dole is right when he says the media has a liberal bias.
Conservatives have accused the media of having a liberal bias for a long time, and this election is no exception. For conservatives, describing the media as liberal is no more controversial than calling the sky blue. Liberals don't seem to pay much attention to the charge, but occasionally, a liberal admits to the obvious.
Van Gordon Sauter, president of Fox News, is one liberal willing to say what some conservatives always have said: "I think the media is biased. There's a distinct, liberal bent to some of the major publications in America today ... I think it's causing a growing degree of disaffection among readers and news consumers ... We're living in a world where everything is relative, and therefore a lot of reporters feel that their vision of life has an unusual validity to it, and they have a right to interpret the news as they see fit."
He adds, "I think reporters tend to be liberal. That's the nature of the calling."
The media is liberal because it's full of liberals.
Liberal reporters outnumber conservative reporters 3 to 1, according to American Society of Newspaper Editors and Brookings Institute studies.
- Compared to the general public, reporters are twice as likely to identify themselves as liberal, while members of the general public are
twice as likely to identify themselves as conservative, according to an Associated Press Managing Editors Association survey.
STAFF COLUMNIST
In the 1984 presidential election, Ronald Reagan received 10 times more bad press than good press, in terms of news seconds. Walter Mondale
The Medicare issue reveals that tendency. Democrats accuse Republicans who want to reduce the growth of Medicare of being extremists who want to slash and cut the program.
I recently attended a speech by Newt Gingrich. He accused the media of failing to tell the truth about the Democrats' campaign of deceit.
received slightly more good press than bad press, according to a study by the American Enterprise Institute.
"Their entire campaign is based on scaring our parents and grandparents," Gingrich said.
In the 1968 election, Nixon also received 10 times more bad press than good press, according to Edith Efron in her book The News Twisters.
Republicans argue that the media treats them unfairly. They argue that the media is a watchdog to them but treats the Democrats like pussycats.
"I challenge reporters who are here to put on the evening news that we increased Medicare from $4,800 a year to over $7,000 a year and ask them (Democrats), "How can you possibly call that a cut?" he said.
The Kansas City Star printed Gingrich's challenge the next day. It did the right thing by printing Gingrich's challenge, but the media has a long way to go in achieving true balance and objectivity. In the meantime, the public should be suspicious of political coverage. If you want to know what's going on, read the opinion page, where you can read forthright arguments for both sides of an issue.
The fact that the media has a liberal bias is not so much a criticism of the media as it is a commentary on human nature. Everyone expresses bias. Because most journalists are liberal, the media expresses a liberal bias. There is no conspiracy, no smoke-filled rooms with editors plotting the overthrow of conservatism.
Any publisher or editor who wishes to increase a paper's credibility should look for ways to eliminate liberal bias. One idea: When editors want to increase diversity in the newsroom, they should look beyond physical appearances and recruit people with different ideologies.
John Hart is a Shawne graduate student in Journalism.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Natural Law Party can bring reform to system
Many do not know the party would like to end corporate welfare. Many students are unaware of its proposal to eliminate interest-group financing for congressional elections. And those concerned with the environment have a right to know the party proposes drastic reform to current policies. The point is that the party makes too much sense for the American people to not be fully informed.
Many students haven't had the opportunity to open their minds to the Natural Law Party's proposals because of a lack of information. I believe this is an injustice to voters.
We the people should be angry with the state that our government is in, including the decision not to permit third parties in the presidential debates. Some of the determining requirements for this decision are third-party column inches in newspapers compared with major parties, the findings of significant public opinion polls, and the professional opinions of Washington bureau chiefs of the major mass media. In a CBS News online article, John Hagelin, party presidential candidate and Harvard graduate, argues that the same government that condemns the exclusion of certain parties from the Bosnian election should practice these principles in America.
Living up to the slacker label as a member of Generation X has
become boring. Political activism could ingrain in our government's mind that we are anything but slackers and that we refuse to watch our country be run by corporations and special-interest groups. Perhaps a third party won't win this election, but enough votes can bring its issues to national attention, forcing a halt to the ping-pong games of Democrats and Republicans. We have the intelligence and resources to research third-party proposals. We also have the energy, numbers and creativity that I witness every day on this campus to make an impact.
Meagan Murphy Sioux City, Iowa, sophomore
Not too many left-wingers are found in Liberal, Kan.
There has been a lot of meaningless yammering on the part of pundits, politicians and commentators about what it means to be a liberal. Bob Dole has applied this label, with all its dastardly connotations, to the Man from Hope. In turn, the president merely sheoffed at this notion and moved so far ahead in the polls that Dole could call Clinton anything he wants, and apparently
no one would care.
STAFF COLUMNIST
In any event, with all this talk about what it means to be a liberal, no one even is interested slightly in what it means to be from Liberal.
You may have noticed with no small degree of irony that I come from a town called Liberal but
seem to be further to the right than anyone else on campus. Which is why my hometown must always include the state name on the editorial page, lest it seem to be some sick editorial joke.
Liberal, Kan., is an exceptionally nice Kansas town. About 20,000 people call it home, as does an outstanding high school football team, a major beef-packing plant, an exceptional regional medical center, a community college and a daily and weekly newspaper. The town also is a center for the farming, oil and natural gas industries.
The values taught in Liberal are anything but what the name implies. They are stodgy, perhaps considered backward in such major intellectual centers as Lawrence. They include such Bob Dole-esque principles as the importance of family, working hard and a firm belief in what is known in our local academic circles as "the conventional Judeo-Christian spiritual entity." But in Liberal, his name is God, and he's alive and well.
Speaking of God, high school football is nearly an organized religion in Liberal. Our team is called the Redskins. No one in Liberal is liberal enough to question whether the team's name would offend anyone. I guess that is because the team is too busy winning football games and learning values such as leadership and how to work as a team.
But to be from Liberal means something entirely different, entirely positive and entirely separate from Bob Dole's connotations.
Dole uses his serious face — OK, his most serious face — when he uses the term liberal to describe Bill Clinton. He implies that liberals waste taxpayer money, foster dependency on the government and rob individuals of the freedom on which our country was founded. Most people in Liberal, I would think, agree with this conservative line of thinking. Both corporate farming and 'freedom to farm' are hot topics in southwest Kansas. Each can be interpreted as a strict message to government to downsize itself, a premise any good liberal would deplore.
we leave what it means to be a liberal to the pundits. They can use it as a buzzword — that is, one without much meaning — as much as they like. They can apply it to a person or a program, and nobody will think much about it. I know the folks back home sure won't.
And to be sure, it's no editorial joke.
Andy Obermuelier is a Liberal, Kan., Junior in Journalism.
THE AVENGING VARMINT
By Lili Barrientos