University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, January 26, 1988
TuesdayForum
5
Press freedom Owners control presses
"Freedom of the press belongs to whoever owns one." That line may have been uttered cynically at first, but it deserves a sober second thought in light of a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 5-to-1 vote, the court upheld the right of a school principal to turn down articles for a student newspaper. In such a case, he was performing the function any publisher would. He was supervising the editorial content of the student paper on behalf of those to be recruited to fill the role the people. The public — not the students — owns that paper, and the public has a school administration to supervise its content.
Yet some sensible observers, including three justices of the Supreme Court, don't seem to grasp this simple principle. If the owner of a press can be told what to print on it, freedom of the press is gone. In the past, the Supreme Court has recognized that danger where private publishers are concerned. In a landmark case, it once refused to order a newspaper publisher to print a letter from an irate citizen
- on the sound principle that government has no business dictating the contents of the country's newspapers.
Yet some of the same papers that welcomed that decision may decry this one. Distinguished journals whose highly responsible publishers would never dream of giving reporters or anybody else the last say on how their papers should be run may oppose this latest decision as an example of what happens on the contrary, it upholds that freedom. Because if freedom of the press doesn't belong to the fellow who owns one, then government will be called on to become editor-in-chief and ar伯er-in-chief among
Paul Greenberg Syndicated Columnist
reporters, students, letter writers and anybody who ever wanted to run somebody else's newspaper.
Unfortunately, the court assigned the writing of the majority opinion in this case to Byron "the Whizzer" White, who contributed his usual inflicities to the record, none of which turned out to be sufficiently relevant to obscure the basically sound position of the majority. The dissenting opinion, by William J. Brennan, grandson of the late Jonathan of the digged where Justice White zapped. Byron White has a tendency to call a spade a digging implement, while Justice Brennan calls it a bloody shovel. Both wrote all around the issue without ever summing it up concisely.
The crux of this issue is: Who owns the press? If the public does, its representatives must take final responsibility — and make the final decisions. If their editorial judgment is wrong, or even if it's correct, students and press critics have every right to criticize it. But those critics have no right to dictate what will be printed in a paper they don't own. The public has entrusted administrators to run its schools and, yes, its school curations and other extracurricular activities. This case is not about whether the final decision on these articles was good or bad journalism, or anyway it shouldn't be, but about who has the right to make that decision on behalf of a public school district.
It needs to be emphasized that this decision applies only to the
official school newspaper and that, if students disagree with its policy, they can start their own, unsupervised paper — and be fully responsible for the consequences. Many of this country's great newspapers got started in 1946 as a product dissatisfied with the product that was available decided to offer his own — rather than force his ideas on a newspaper he didn't own.
It's a fair and practical principle if you think about it. Freedom of the press belongs to whoever owns one.
Student editors lose rights
What an ironic turn of events! When the writer was asked to react to the 5-3 decision by the Supreme Court in the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier case, she recalled a paper researched and written in the early '70s. In part, it said, "Scholastic journalism has a vital role to play in the secondary schools today. That it stands on the threshold of a new era of freedom can no longer be questioned in light of current evidence."
And so it was for nearly two decades. Syndicated columnist
Jackie Engel
James Kilpatrick commented, "Student editors are the only untouchable editors in the land . . . a theory that is hogwash." Well, the Supreme Court did as Kilpatrick, and others wanted. They ruled on a question they had heretofore not addressed directly; namely, what are the rights of a student editor at a public institution?
In 1967, the Supreme Court had ruled that neither the 14th Amendment nor the Bill of Rights was for adults alone. Suddenly, high school students shed these rights as they enter the school house doors.
Columnist
What will be the consequences? Frightening. It will not just have a chilling effect but will put student views at many schools into a deep freeze. Further, it fosters hypocrisy that all honest educators deploy. The student learns about his freedom of expression in his government class, then crosses the hall into the journalism room and is told he can't practice it. What kind of a mixed message does that give? Is it any wonder that the adult society is accused of a double standard?
Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "Don't sit down to write until you have stood up to live." Today's students have been thrust into a alembstrom of events, many not of their own liking. They have not been given the opportunity in their short span to stand up and live. They believe that if they wait to sit down to write, the events will have passed them by. It will be too late.
Those who favor the decision purport that those who "own" the press have the freedom. By virtue of their chronological years, the opportunity to "own" a press is not practical. Must they wait for ownership to have a voice in issues surrounding them?
What most students read in their high school newspapers is trivial nonsense. Whenever they try to say something worthwhile, they get censored. Teen pregnancies have skyrocketed. One out of every three students who enter a classroom today come from a single-parent home. Frequently, the first adult seen by the child is Yet, when someone entristing students wanted to write on relevant issues such as abortion and divorce as in the Hazelwood wood. Kuhmeier them, they were denied this right.
The irrelevant high school press is dead. If this comes as a startling revelation to those closely associated with secondary school curriculum and administration, it should not. Today's youth is an integral part of a generation that is demanding new answers to old problems and wanting an honest appraisal of their world and society. Can society feign surprise that no longer are they interested just in the outcome of Friday's game, the Saturday night dance or 10 innovative ways to drag their town's main street? They want to make the world their beat.
Media critic Ben Bagdikian pointed out, "If freedom of expression becomes merely an empty slogan in the minds of enough children, it will be dead by the time they become adults." Is that the message the Supreme Court intended to give?
Jackie Engel is a lecturer in journalism and executive secretary of the Kansas Scholastic Press Association.
JODA & FRIENDS
A Public Service of this newspaper & The Advertising Counc
Hair Cutting • Perme• Highlighting
Facials • Manicures • Pedicures
Waxing • Ear Piercing • Tanning
3009 w. 6 841-0337
counted on us.
Red Cross. The Good Neighbor.
We're counting on you.
Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs is having an Informational meeting regarding activities for spring. New members are welcome.
Time 7 p.m.
Place: Pioneer Room Level 3, Burge Union
Date: January 28, 1988
Speaker: Kevin Wickliff
Subject: Legal aspects of entrepreneurship
Prices effective every Tuesday at both Taco Bell locations in Lawrence
Every Tuesday
1220 West 6th Street
1408 West 23rd Street
Tropical Biology
COSTA RICA at the Monteverde Institute Monteverde June 15 — August 5, 1988 With three to four semesters of college-level biology, you can:
Concentrate in areas of specific interest through independent research topics.
Study tropical biology within the natural classroom of the Montserrat Cielo Forest Reserve.
Learn or improve Spanish language skills.
- Participate in a week-long field trip to areas of biological importance in Costa Rica.
For information and an application, contact the Academic Programs Department/MTM1, Council on International Educational Exchange, 205 East 42nd St., New York, NY 10017 (212) 6611414, extension 1186.
The Program in Tropical Biology at the Monteverde Institute is administered by the Council on International Educational Exchange, a private, not-for-profit organization with a membership of over 160 educational institutions.