SOMEWHERE in the past 200-odd years, the words "free press" got mangled. Like parallel lines going off into the distance, "freedom of the press" and "free speech" converged, even when the two aren't all that similar.
When left-wing activist turn conservative commentator David Horowitz submitted his controversial advertisement regarding slavery reparations to various collegiate newspapers across the nation, the actions of a free press are what denied the ad from seeing newsprint in the majority of those publications.
Our founding fathers knew that a free press was necessary to ward off tyranny. You don't have to look any further than the state controlled media in countries such as China to see why.
You see, a free press has no obligation to publish anything. Practicing good journalistic ethics requires a newspaper to present both sides of a debate, but there's no law that says journalists must be ethical. If the paper's customers catch on to the idea that the newspaper is censoring one side of a debate, they'll stop reading the paper. A paper that loses readers begins to lose advertisers, and thus - money. It pays to be ethical.
Anyone can see that Horowitz wasn't out to make a point about the subject of slavery reparations. Reparations was a non-issue before Horowitz submitted his ad. My guess is that slavery reparations will return to that designation after the flap over the collegiate press is finished.
Instead, Horowitz set out to make a point about how the radical left controls higher learning these days, something that right-wing advocates have been chasing for quite a while. If Horowitz wanted to start a national debate on slavery reparations, he'd have sent the ad to the New York Times and The Washington Post first - not The Harvard Crimson and The Cavalier Daily.
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Horowitz needed a topic guaranteed to fire up any left-wing radical. He needed the subject to be intellectually sound but completely inflammatory. It just so happens, a piece he published on Jan. 3, "10 Reasons Why Reparations Slavery Is A Bad Idea - And Racist Too," happened to fit the bill.
Thus, Horowitz had a no-lose situation. If a majority of the college papers opted not to run the ad, he could claim that his views were being censored. If the papers did run it, the violent outcry against the ad from the radical left would prove his point.
Horowitz handed collegiate newspaper editors across the nation a ticking public relations bomb. Excuse them for tossing it out the window rather than having it blow up in their face.
But, in spite of this, a bevy of nationally respected professional newspapers took to their opinion pages, scolding their collegiate counterparts for not accepting Horowitz's ad.
Yet, if you call the same respected national newspapers, asking them if they would run the ad, they refer you to their legal departments.
Student publications don't have legal departments. Most college newspapers have nothing to rely on but the hard work of their staff and the popularity of their advertising space.
I speak from experience - managing a collegiate daily is hard. You spend a ridiculous number of hours in an office and simultaneously attempt to keep your academic career from shifting into reverse.
We've heard what kind of trouble an advertisement like Horowitz's can bring. Students storming newspaper offices, demanding resignations and being general hooligans. When you're already spending every waking hour working on a newspaper or schoolwork, you avoid trouble like the plague.
David Horowitz had a thinly veiled agenda - to demonstrate that liberals control college campuses. He dreamt up an impressive publicity stunt to draw attention to his claim. It succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, partly because of the very people that he opposes. And now professional journalists are admonishing the 20 or so college students who didn't help Horowitz's stunt succeed on a wider scale.
If David Horowitz believes that America's college campuses are being held hostage by radical left-wing forces, that's fine and dandy. If he wants to state his opinion loudly for others to hear, that's his right under the First Amendment. But it's every college newspaper's First Amendment right to tell him to pursue his cause by himself.
It may look heroic to hold a ticking bomb in your hand and vow to resist throwing it away with every ounce of strength in your body. But most rational people get rid of the thing.
(Brian Haluska's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at bhaluska@cavalierdaily.com.)
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