The debate continues over whether the editor of the Collegian should lose his job over his decision to use the F-word in huge type in an editorial. J. David McSwane insists the editorial was simply intended to defend free speech. McSwane has been ordered to appear before at a formal hearing before Rocky Mountain College's communication board on Oct. 4, according to a story in Editor and Publisher. Last week, the board said they'd received more than 300 emails about the editorial, with 70 percent running against McSwane's decision. The debate is raging in the blogosphere, too, with some defending the student and others saying the editorial was irresponsible. Apparently, some who know McSwane think he was more interested in grabbing the spotlight than the first amendment all along, according to an article on the Rocky Mountain News website.
So where do you stand? Should the editor stay or go? Is this really a first amendment issue or not?
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2 comments:
Banning any word is a slippery First Amendment slope, whether in a newspaper or in a rap song.
Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder.
However, McSwane should have considered the fallout. The flap over the use of the word is greater than whatever information he was trying to convey in the first place.
A separate issue: Who publishes the student paper? A publisher can fire an editor for a lot of reasons (such as embarrassing the organization). Any legal case centers on the rules/contract governing the relationship between McSwane and his bosses.
Generally, editors don't own the papers they work for and getting fired happens.
I think he just shouldn't be editor anymore. The decision to let the phrase get through was purely attention grabbing, not to mention stupid. By pulling this stunt he lost all the students who support Bush, because believe it or not, there are a lot who do. If he was going to do this he should have made it equal and had some papers that said "Praise Bush". Because then at least nobody could say he was one sided. Still stupid, and now he knows how stupid he was.
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