4 Monday, March 28, 1977 University Dafly Kansan Comment Opinions on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Kansas or the School of Journalism IRE's zeal draws ire A cloud of reportorial dust has darkened the once-sunny skies of Arizona—the land that "god enriches." The dust is the product of a nine-month investigation by a team of investigative reporters, called Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE), and by no coincidence, is in response to the murder of Don Bolles, former reporter for the Arizona Republic, who was supposedly hot on the trail of organized crime in the state. IRE has, in its continuing series of stories, come to the conclusion that organized crime, and not God, has enriched the state, as well as many of its prominent political figures. INCLUDED IN THE LIST of Arizona politicos attacked by IRE are Sen. Barry Goldwater and Gov. Paul Castro. Others include owners of Arizona real estate firms, night clubs and a former owner of the New York Yankees. The reports so far have been far from conclusive. "So and so was seen in the company of a reported organized crime figure, who was once seen in the country engaging in prostitution czar, who is reportedly the friend of a parking lot attendant in Denver..." The truth isn't that much more substantial. This, from the 14th article of the series: "Today the (Joseph) Bonanno organization moves large amounts of heroin through Pueblo, Colo., for shipment to St. Louis and other cities." 'BONANNO'S TWO sons are established in San Jose. and the old man appears to be making a concerted effort to gain control of the rackets in that state . . . "One of Bonanno's visitors may have been Hector Mar Wong, a Chinese-born drug kingpin who operates one of Mexico's biggest heroin smuggling rings from his restaurant in Nogales, as Mar Wong's car and a vehicle owned by an American narcotics dealer were parked outside Bonanno's house one day last spring." Hardly conclusive, hardy proof. Who says so? If these well-known members of organized crime are indeed so well-known, then they are well-known only to IRE. OTHERS CRITICIZE IRE for different reasons. The Washington Post refused to join in the hunt, calling it "pack journalism with overtomes of revenge and vigilantism." The Wall Street Journal was less conspicuous in its coverage of the investigation an "esee trip" and "commercial." One reporter was reportedly suspended from the IRE team because it was discovered he was writing a book about the IRE investigation. He claims he resigned. ABOUT 25 DAILY newspapers are running the IRE series. And surely, the project has had its positive results, one being the highlighting of organized crime's flourishing existence in Arizona. It probably flourishes everywhere else, too. So tell us something we didn't already know, fellas. Or is the IRE report like a dime-store paperback detective novel—saving the best for last? (Note: This is the first of two columns attempting to answer the question "What's a Kansan editor?" Semester ago, when I was a Reporting II student, I used to pause between paragraphs while writing meeting stories and stare in the direction of a glass-enclosed room in the corner of the Kansan newsroom—the editor's office. What do editors do, anyway? Through the glass, I could see two vaguely familiar figures (One the editor and the other the editorial editor, but I wasn't sure which was which) watching television or study in the library with a touch of resentment, what a cushy job. Then I bent over the typewriter once again to finish my meeting story. NOWADAYS I am on the other side of the glass. And, through the corner of my eye, I can see the familiar resentment of Reporting II students hunched over meeting stories. What exactly is it that Bates (or is it Brann?) is doing in there? Quite a bit, really. More than reporters realize and, in fact, more than most editors realize when they start the job. The editor's job is made up primarily of public relations, planning and responsibility. The public relations function is the most enjoyable. At least it means going to a nice few dinners and meeting important and influential people. The public relations team has good terms with the print shop, the Student Senate, the administration, the journalism Court creates voting bloc WASHINGTON - From time to time, the Supreme Court is charged not with merely inroads but with effectively amending the Constitution. From time to time, the charge is true—and the charge is true today in the Court and in the Fifteenth Amendment. The decision earlier this month in the New York redistricting case marked another mile along the road. Step by step, the group came to the Fifteenth that the framers never put there. In its solicitude for black voters as a class, the Court is giving an Orwellian twist to the doctrine of equal representation voters, as a class, are to be a little more equal than others. THE NEW YORK case, affecting state legislative districts in Kings County, arose after the Supreme Court of Rights Act. In obedience to an effective order from the U.S. attorney general, fixing a minimum quota of 65 per cent of the district's new district lines. These new boundaries split a community of Hasidic Jews. They took their protest to court. The high court ordered that the quota plan. and affirmed the quota plan. ruling is further to cement a bizarre doctrine the Court has been basly doing in recent years. This doctrine is a law that requires each state have a right and a privilege accorded to no other group in America's political life: They have a right to vote in federal political power "diluted." ALONE AMONG all the ethnic, economic, social, The effect of the Court's James J. Kilpatrick (cc) 1977 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc. regional and special-interest groups in the nation, the black minority is to be protected from a potential lack of ability to elect the candidate of its choice." By this decision, the Court establishes a "Constitutionally valid mandate of nonwhite voting strength." It is hard to fathom where in the world the Court dredged up this remarkable construction of the law. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits a judge shall not be "denied or abridged" on account of race. The amendment says nothing about "diluting" the political power of a racial bliss. This is one of the own homespun construction. IN THE CASE at hand, neither Kings County nor the State of New York denied or abridged any citizen's right to register and vote. The black man, the Puerto Rican, the Hasidic Jew-all attacker, had identical rights. But under the Court's ruling, black voters are treated as a specially favored class. They are to be guaranteed, in particular districts, a substantial majority, and they have their opportunity to elec- "black representative." The Court split wide open. White announced the Court's judgment and wrote the principal opinion, but he could sell his reasoning, in Bremen and Blackmun had different ideas. Stewart and Powell concurred in the judgment. Rehnquist dissented in large part, but didn't say why. Out came out. Chief Justice Burger came down in total dissent. MR. JUSTICE Breman was plainly troubled. The case, he said, "carries us further down the road of race-centered remedial devices than we have done with our current treatment of affording "preferential treatment to disadvantaged newwhites generally" must raise "serious questions of fairness." But if Brennan's conscience gave him pain, he had an analgesic salvage for his work. Brennan's discriminatory quota system amounted only to "benign" and not to malign discrimination. The Voting Rights Act afforded no use of overt numerical devices in electoral redistricting. All this was too much for Burger. He had thought it unconstitutional for a state to draw district lines, a "objective of reaching a predetermined racial result." But this was precisely what his brothers had approved in Kings County. The 65 per cent that were indeferable—as mere机械 gerrymandering. The effect, in Burger's view, must be to sustain the existence of ghettos and racial prejudice at the polls. This correspondent voices no objection whatever to the purpose of the Voting Rights Act. That purpose is to protect the black citizen's right to vote on the same basis with everyone else and to individualize the individual's right to vote is transformed into a group's protected power to elect, something is grossly wrong. student journalists are the worst of the breed. Somebody is forever stepping on somebody else's toes. Photographers, reporters, entertainment editors and sports editors all have their own special grips from time to time. The editor PLANNING is less enjoyable and less visible. What will be needed for this section? Relays edition? How many sections will the ad side provide Editor's Note faculty and the Kansan staff all at the same time. The job is a mincourse in diplomacy. Iim Bates and what can we do with them? How much money for sports travel and to where? What is wrong with the copy flow from campus desk to copy editors and how can it be improved? Planning and PR blend together in what has been referred to as the "murse midr" or "day care center" function of a nursing center. Nurses are generally known for having excessively large egos and has to try to keep everybody happy. Because of all the eos running around, it's especially important that the editor fight the urge to "do something" as far as possible day to day or night to day. When the paper is rappened, it is papered. THE EDITOR determines what story runs and generally where, and that is fine. But if the editor start making up the front page and editing stories the rest of the staff is going to start wondering why they are even there. He shouldn't step in or pull rank unless something is wrong or someone wants help. The editor has to explain to ex-friends why the Kansan insists on ruining KU's budget chances (and explain to ex-high school friends at K-State why we're so elitist). This brings us up to the responsibility part of the editor's job. The editor may not see a slip up or hair-pulling error until it appears in the paper, but he's responsible for it, nevertheless. The editor is the final decision; he has to tell callers why their meeting announcement didn't appear in Orchis or Campus why their Letter to the Editor had a typo in it. AS A RESULT of this responsibility, the editor is under considerable pressure and does a lot of—maybe even too much—worrying about it. This is why editors skip classes. It is easier to watch or smoke too much or eat Maelox. It even may be why some editors watch television. This has been only a very brief synopsis. Maelox does a complete list of all the miscellaneous things the job involves—ranging from helping plan a $300,000 budget and fighting the tradition-bound Kansan's tracking down unclaimed phone calls and opening the newsroom for keyless underlings—would be a needless task. It wouldn't be all that interesting to readers, let alone the average reader. This should be sufficient. (Next week: How the editor is chosen.) Seniors suffer suckeritis Before the dreaded and inevitable disease known as 'senioritis' hits, there is also a stage named in 'suckertails.' This is an unpleasant and altogether unnecessary unimaginable menace be besieged by insurance salesmen, magazine hucksters, armed services reps and combivially-inclined members of the opposite sex, all bent on improving a sex education of mutual concordance out in the real world. In these encounters we were In these encounters we were urged to become members of a college team. We formation for college students, to help them make the most of the money we all hope to make in a few fiscally sound months, or years. IF THIS ISN'T familiar to you, it will be shortly. The high-pressure sales spiel the writers. One was simply signed, "Bob and Mary." But then, on the very next page, was another letter from a couple, "Nancy & Bob." The handwriting in the letters looked Her demonstration was highlighted graphically by drawing a lot of round numbers in the room and then it against her. She was showing us how much we could save by enrolling in her 10-year plan of buying virtually every legal item from this consumer marketplace. to invest in this personal economy measure was delivered by a person who is mainly a best-seller, both with herself, and with the many adjectives she used to describe her employer. She was quite amply endowed, and I cannot remember her name. I cannot remember her name. Although we didn't hold it against her,we were not impressed. ANYWAY, WHAT was most interesting were the copies of the "response letters" from the overwhelmingly satisfied students in the program. These were included in the description brochure. Instead, it was nine months before I received my first copy of the publication, and then only after I had spent eight months carrying on a telephone affair with the company's answering machine. He never did send me the card. The buying service gave away free trips to a four-day Miami Beach hotel vacation for two. You had to find your own way down there, and reading the list of terms and conditions in the holiday would inevitably take longer than the vacation itself. A DIGRESSION: Last spring, I was persuaded to subscribe to a magazine for five years by a young salesman who told me that if he sold enough subscriptions, he could win a trip to the Bahamas. He even said that he would send me a card. First of all, none of the letters had any last names listed for Paul Jefferson Editorial Writer THERE WAS A variety of letters, in every imaginable typing style, script, language, dialect. Some of the letters were ostensibly the work of housewives, with the expert penmanship and the wise use feeling to prepare used to help their satisfaction with products received. Some letters bore the earmarks of a hastily written student composition: nearly illegible penmanship, crossed-out words, and words completely misspelled. Another response, as lastly obvious from a named KU student, as she thoughtfully included her ID number. unsettlingly similar. And why weren't there any addresses on the letters? Maybe Bob didn't want to hear that. Maybe Mary for Nancy. IN ADDITION, all of the key promotional phrases were S in underlined (... "best battery my car ever had") ... "thank you so much for caring about the consumer," she said, the letter writers were doing the underlining or the company. Then again, maybe they're the same. Commercial testimonials have always stretched credibility, and these letters were no exception. Ru seve reco hitte one- Equally unclear was the persistent references in the letters to a miracle product with the confusing name of "Hard Surface Cleaner." The cleaner, or are the chemicals to be cleaned hard? Either way, the company is cleaning up that field. ONE LETTER that continues to haunt was signed by a person known as "Raymond A." if it in itself wasn't puzzling enough, underneath the signature was typed a word, "President." President of what? Did we miss some minor footnote of history? Did Raymond miss his inaugural parade? Is he a cleaner who uses Hard Screw Doors? Does the A stand for Arthur? The answer to the whole affair may lie in the initials found at the bottom of every typewritten letter. On the one from Raymond, they are RA:bs. THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN *courished at the University of Kansas daily August 14th from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.* June and July excused Saturday Sunday and Holiday Monday. Subscriptions by mail are $9 a semester or $18 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $20 a semester. Editor Jim Rabe Managing Editor Greg Hack Jim Bates Editorial Editor Stewart Bramw Campus Editor Alison Gwinn Associate Campus Editor Lynda Smith Assistant Campus Editors Barbara Rosewater Copy Chefs Bernell Jukke, Tim Pursell Sports Editor Gary Vee Associate Sports Editors Darrin Ramirez Photo Editor Courtney Thompson Image Editor Greg Campbell Tier Master Yetter Wasserman Business Manager Janice Clements Advertising Manager Tim O'Mahony Assistant Advertising Manager Randy Hijabe Assistant Classified Manager Danny Cotterman National Advertising Manager Rinky Gunterer National Advertising Manager Robin Grinder