sooner n houston
4/18/2006, 08:08 AM
Here's a hilarious story from the Daily O'Collegian, student newspaper
of Oklahoma State University:
*** QUOTE ***
A university spokesman threatened censorship of a Daily O'Collegian
story earlier this week about President George Bush's plans to speak at
spring graduation ceremonies, saying the story would jeopardize OSU's
chances of receiving the high-profile visit.
Gary Shutt, director of communication services, told an O'Collegian
reporter Monday evening that he would call the director of OSU's
journalism school and ask him to stop the newspaper from running any story
addressing rumors about Bush or confirming the president's visit.
The White House officially announced Bush's visit Thursday, before the
O'Collegian could find a source to confirm the visit on the record.
The journalism school's director, Tom Weir, has no editorial control of
the student-run newspaper. Students control all aspects of the paper,
and Weir said he "can't imagine" any reason for asking editors not to
run a story.
*** END QUOTE ***
Accompanying the story is a "photo illustration" showing a bespectacled
young man with an image of an American flag covering his mouth.
Now, this column yields to no one in our support for collegiate press
freedoms. As Taranto trivia buffs are well aware, we waged our own
free-press battle many years ago when we were enrolled in a third-tier Western university. ( Oklahoma State, in case you were wondering, is a third-tier national university.) But the kerfuffle as described in the O'Collegian has nothing to do with censorship. Rather, it is a simple leak case.
What happened was that the paper received information from someone who
presumably wasn't authorized to disclose it. The authorities got wind
of the leak and asked the paper not to publish it. The paper refused to
withhold the information (though it ended up not publishing it anyway,
because it wasn't able to confirm it). In short, everyone behaved
completely honorably, except the silly student journalists who tried to
trump it up into a censorship case.
Guys, take it from us: Actually being censored isn't as much fun as it
sounds.
of Oklahoma State University:
*** QUOTE ***
A university spokesman threatened censorship of a Daily O'Collegian
story earlier this week about President George Bush's plans to speak at
spring graduation ceremonies, saying the story would jeopardize OSU's
chances of receiving the high-profile visit.
Gary Shutt, director of communication services, told an O'Collegian
reporter Monday evening that he would call the director of OSU's
journalism school and ask him to stop the newspaper from running any story
addressing rumors about Bush or confirming the president's visit.
The White House officially announced Bush's visit Thursday, before the
O'Collegian could find a source to confirm the visit on the record.
The journalism school's director, Tom Weir, has no editorial control of
the student-run newspaper. Students control all aspects of the paper,
and Weir said he "can't imagine" any reason for asking editors not to
run a story.
*** END QUOTE ***
Accompanying the story is a "photo illustration" showing a bespectacled
young man with an image of an American flag covering his mouth.
Now, this column yields to no one in our support for collegiate press
freedoms. As Taranto trivia buffs are well aware, we waged our own
free-press battle many years ago when we were enrolled in a third-tier Western university. ( Oklahoma State, in case you were wondering, is a third-tier national university.) But the kerfuffle as described in the O'Collegian has nothing to do with censorship. Rather, it is a simple leak case.
What happened was that the paper received information from someone who
presumably wasn't authorized to disclose it. The authorities got wind
of the leak and asked the paper not to publish it. The paper refused to
withhold the information (though it ended up not publishing it anyway,
because it wasn't able to confirm it). In short, everyone behaved
completely honorably, except the silly student journalists who tried to
trump it up into a censorship case.
Guys, take it from us: Actually being censored isn't as much fun as it
sounds.