Okay, so two reporters wrote about the practice of slaughtering horses just beyond the boarder. Is it fair to compare this to the infamous “Rocky Mountain Collegian” editorial that is rocking the nation? Both are sparking a lot of commentaries and heated debate—well sort of. It still may be too early to say that the horse article could be as big as the Collegian editorial but you never know. For some reason though, I doubt it. Why? Well, The Collegian told the President to f*ck [edited] off and well, the Express News reporters called for change on an inhumane practice. I mean clearly we know that the American people are obviously going to care about the horses way more than they care about the opinion of a college newspaper—right?
I mean I only hope that the horse slaughtering issue is going to spark as much controversy as the editorial—after all, isn’t that the whole point of journalism? Well, at least one point: to stir up a little controversy—to ignite change. Essentially, if you look closely, these stories are very similar because they both wanted to achieve the same goal: change. So why, at the end of the day, will the Collegian’s editorial be beat by a stick over and over in every news outlet across the country where as the horse slaughtering issue will probably pass under the radar? I think this is essentially stating something about where our American values lay. Black Beauty is slaughtered in the thousands and there is a disgruntled burp about the graphic photographs. But It appears that our government isn’t confident with themselves and when, God forbid, someone tells the President to f*ck off everyone just gets really hyper sensitive about the issue. This is what revolution is! This is what my parents’ generation did all the time and they didn’t get $30,000 worth of advertising ripped from newspaper funding and over 1,000 responses on their blog.
I work for a college newspaper and I value the idea that so many people are paying attention to an editorial… in a sense it’s flattering. Nonetheless, I’m tired of it—enough already—so a group of college students don’t like Bush (surprise?) and some adults/ military kids don’t like their opinion. We know this already! So can’t we move on to more pressing issues or at least look at the center of the argument: massive groups of people do not agree with our President.
Maybe San Francisco has desensitized my political tolerance.
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2 comments:
Two different things, though I take your point. The San Antonio story is an actual news story. Apparently, no one objected to the expose but to the rawness of the front page pictures. This is a problem for newspapers, the idea that children and grannies read it, and their sensibilities should not be jarred. It's the Lowest Common Denominator defense. We'll talk about it more when we get to photojournalism ethics.
The Colorado State editorial was not a news story. It was a roar of protest, a choice to break through the fog or propriety to let the world know the editors were *really angry.* Well, that worked. Probably almost no children or grannies read the CSU school newspaper -- and almost no CSU student can claim unfamiliarity with the word. But in this day of instant Internet, the editors had to know that what they said would be widely circulated -- though, again, I daresay few children or grannies had their noses rubbed in it.
So what conclusion: The SA paper can justify itself by saying these are facts and any effort to contradict them will fail. (Other justifications flow, of course, from this truth standard.)
On the other hand, the editorial is not producing facts, only saying as strongly as possible how it feels about facts the editors think others have established. I'm going to fall back on a utilitarian rationale here: At the end of the day, I'm not sure what good the editorial did. And isn't that the only possible justification for any serious editorial comment: What good does it do? As I frequently say (I hope), bring this up in class if you want us to chew on it somemore.
from the SA paper's editor later on: "Lara's photos from a slaughterhouse in Ciudad Juárez depicted a brutal process. Not exactly how most of us imagine old Dobbin finishing his life. As we expected, the story sparked a major reaction. Readers who responded online generally praised it. Those who called or e-mailed me were outraged, by about a 70-30 margin. No one maligned horses, but they disagreed about when and how they should die."
I understand the overarching frustration here with the pattern in our society of focusing so much attention on innane issues when there is real news that is affecting so much more and it is plainly ignored. You could go on forever in talking about this!
CSU wanted to ruffle some feathers and get people talking. But they did it using the lowest commen denominator, never an acceptable way t turn heads.
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