Emerald to Censors: “Fuck Off”
In a show of truly great journalistic solidarity, the Ol ‘ Dirty printed the word “fuck” in huge type in their opinion section today. The editorial board made the decision to run the piece to show support for both their brothers and sisters at Colorado State as well as the always handy First Amendment.
The Colorado State editorial board came under fire recently because they wrote “Taser this…FUCK BUSH” in response to the “excessive” force used by officers in restraining a man at a John Kerry event.
The Puritanical view of obscenities in this country, combined with a slow news day, propelled the Colorado State editorial to the level of national shit storm. (Or so says the Daily Emerald, I hadn’t heard about it until today.)
The Emerald goes on to write: “The First Amendment gives Ku Klux Klansmen the right to march in parades; it protects civil rights leaders and neo-Nazis alike. Unfortunately, it does not prohibit universities from curbing the speech of students working at most college newspapers.”
I have to disagree and say that the First Amendment does protect students from college administrators who wish to limit the language of on-campus publications.
Case in point: Does the Emerald read the Commentator? If the administration wanted to wash out our mouths with the proverbial soap, they would have more than a case. In fact, some people would probably thank them.
The real issue here is poorly written editorials. “Taser this…FUCK BUSH”? What does that even mean? And it hardly even comes close to explaining why a man being tased at a John Kerry event warrants the “FUCK BUSH” moniker.
I think the Ol’ Dirty is on to something here, but I think I will stick with my original statement–it must of been a slow news day.
Fuck.
I suggest the following for reference:
here
I think it was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man from acting a jackass in a theater and causing a panic.”
as assinine as the editorial may be, the banter of comments below the online poster takes the cake. At least there is one level-headed, upright citizen that knows how to focus on the fine print:
The problem of these “defending the First Amendment” debacles is that everyone then thinks it is alright to talk like a jackass. Sure, it’s not illegal to act or talk like a jackass, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are a huge jackass.
Per the PDF: Oh my God. I can’t believe the ODE is still attaching one word tags to every fucking story: “activism” & “tickets” etc … I remember last year one of the tags was “rape” or “abuse” or something like that — as if there’s a “rape” beat at the University. Jesus, I thought they recognized how stupid those tags are.
Dude, we ran the F-bomb on the back cover, TWICE, while I was at the OC. Take that ODE, WE’VE GOT YOUR EDGEY RIGHT HERE!
Some quick points: 1) The Colorado State University “editorial” was stupid, pointless and nonsensical. (What, exactly, did Bush have to do with the aforementioned tasering? Wasn’t Kerry the speaker at the event?)
2) The ODE editorial is lame and sort of pointless itself. But the editorial board there loves editorials about the frightening state of student journalism, because those pieces increase the paper’s chances of showing up on University Wire.
The arguments from the editorial are pretty dumb:
“Because the readership of college newspapers is college students, nearly all of whom are adults, they should be allowed to print profanity without fear of retribution.”
Yes, I agree with this, but try doing something comparable at a real newspaper. People will get pissed off and you will get fired.
“Whatever the board decides, it will send a powerful message about how much freedom students at Colorado State can expect, and exactly what and who the First Amendment actually protects.”
First, who gives a shit about Colorado State? Second: No. No it won’t. The editorial board should crack open their communication law books for a refresher. And although I don’t disagree that the editor should keep his job (this is, after all, student journalism), I really don’t think this case is tantamount to Cohen v. California.
And then there’s this: “Free speech cannot be curbed unless it endangers the immediate safety of the populace.” Boy, seeing as how we have a presidential election heating up, I can’t wait until the ODE and its brilliant legal minds tackle campaign finance reform.
In a follow-up, The fucking Ol Dirty meant to have this fuck of an editorial published on fucking Monday, but due to a fucking printer “error” its fucking editorial page was replaced with page two of Monday’s Oregon State fucking Barometer.
Here’s the fucking PDF, if you want to see what fuck looks like in 150 font. For the record, we could print Fuck in 400 font. We just might do it. We’re crazy like that.
“I have to disagree and say that the First Amendment does protect students from college administrators who wish to limit the language of on-campus publications.”
Hmmmm…..