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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 5, 1997)
▼ EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Steven Asbury MANAGING EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom NIGHT EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom EDITORIAL EDITORS: Ashley Bach & Brian Diamond i editorials, letters, commentary and perspective NEWSROOM: (541) 346-5511 DISPLAY ADVERTISING: (541) 346-3712 BUSINESS OFFICE: (541)346-5512 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: (541) 346-4343 From free press to corporate propaganda COFFOWl^2 Consolidation of ownership of the media has helped turn the media into a tool for promoting big business and government interests CHRIS HUTCHINSON/Emerak) When I was a young girl, I’d try to imagine what living in Russia would be like — long bread lines, the KGB infiltrating every secret meeting, punishment for every dissi aent. l tearea the wicked communists would invade the United States and spread their evil in our angelic capital ist society. I realized the Russian people had no free me dia, a major power of the people in any society, which meant they had no way to know what atrocities their government was committing, yet I could not forgive Russia for being communist, even though I didn’t know what communism was. All grown up now, I recognize the cold war brainwashing that went on for decades, and I’m glad I was only on the tail end of it. But I realize that the government could never have so successfully placed fear into our hearts without one important vehi cle: the media. And nothing has changed. And who owns the machine? The American public? Yeah right. The parent company of CBS is Westing house; NBC’s parent is General Elec tric. Corporations merge, making the owners of the mainstream media into just a handful. Why should we worry who owns the media? If corporations decide what information the public re ceives, they can censor their unethi cal and often illegal acts. The May 9, 1997 issue of Eugene Weekly fea tured a story on “the top 10 stories ig nored or under- reported by the U.S. news media.” Within the description of these sto ries we find corporate crime killing human beings (Eugene Weekly dies that in 1987, 50,000 to 70,000 work ers died prematurely due to on-the job exposures to toxins. Compare this to the number of murder victims, which was about 21,500. Another story focuses on Shell Oil’s possible connection to assassinations.), the PR industry’s infiltration into the media and government actions held from the public eye in order to make more money for corporations who receive government contracts. The big corruption and crime that goes on in this country and the rest of the world is often difficult to compre hend. I know that as a college-aged student, it is easy to feel powerless, to do what they want and brush these problems under the carpet. But the actions of big business and the government are not the only truths being edited. Everyday stores are sensationalized on TV and muf fled when the truth might affect the readers. As a columnist, I have to wonder whether I am feeding into the corrup tion of our media. I encourage every person who reads this to seek out the truth and to not ignore it once it is found. We are not yet free from the influence of only a few men, and we must all demand the right to know what the companies we work for are doing and the right to stop those ac tions when they Eire unacceptable. Laura Daniel, a junior majoring in bi ology, is a columnist for the Emerald. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper. E-mail: moonpie@gladstone.uoregon.edu. Tour of animal research center gives glimpse into injustice The director of SETA relays her experience inside the University’s animal research center Recently I went on a tour of the Uni versity’s Animal Care Facility. This “nothing to hide” tour was definitely not that. I call it the “white glove” tour due to the fact that it took three months to plan, allowing a lot of time for preparation. Only four members of Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were al lowed on the tour, and no type of camera was permitted. SETA even offered to ask permission before taking a picture — which, of course, was denied. A reporter from The Register-Guard asked to join the tour. At first he was granted permission, but once the researchers found out, this ap proval was quickly revoked. The tour took two hours. One hour was spent watching a slide show presentation. Thirty minutes were spent looking at parts of the facility that dealt with cleaning cages, food and so forth. Only half an hour was spent actually looking at the animals. COMMENTARY Chelsea Lincoln The tour passed the display windows quickly, and the zebrafish, newts and frogs were not even shown. When asked about them, Monte Mathews, the head of the Ani mal Care Facility, said he felt that we want ed to see the main animals and that those weren’t too important. I asked where the fa cility is located, and he refused to tell me. Once SETA got to look through the small windows into the rooms, the tour became amazingly realistic and sad. The first room was filled with mice. There were rows and columns of them. All in their regulation sized, crammed cage. Mathews was very proud of the fact that these mice and other prisoners have PVC pipes. I didn’t see the mice care too much; they were too busy scraping at the top of their cages trying to get out or hiding. Lizards were in the next room. These poor creatures were being used for behav ior experiments done by assistant biology professor Emilia Martins. Interesting? Maybe. Worthy of being caged up alive? No way! Again, rows and columns of cages with no respect for the lizards’ individual lives. In the next window were the owls. Asso ciate biology professor Terry Takahashi performs research on them. The room had some type of netting around the critters and there were hanging cages and sticks of wood to perch on. There were at least ten owls in that room and there was definitely no space for any real attempt for flying. We walked to the next window. I stepped up to the window and saw the de fenseless rhesus monkeys looking up at me. The one to my left would look at me, react in an aggressive manner and then suddenly be normal again sitting in its cage. The monkey to my right just kept looking at me. You can tell a lot from an an imal’s facial expressions and looks in their eyes. It looked at me as if saying, “Please help me. Get me out of here.” As I watched these desperate beings peer out at me in their homes of steel, Matthews told us about how much the monkeys loved the researchers and how they would jump into the experimental chair and couldn’t wait for the research to begin. I was sickened. These monkeys have a head post ce mented vertically onto their skull with a nylon cap covering it. This is so the re searchers can basically connect the ani mals into the experimental chair so they can not move. I can still see that monkey peering up at me, trapped and helpless, in my memory. It is very sad. As “higher beings,” we should have the moral standing to say no to such cruel acts. Captivity is not an option. These animals are not our slaves, and we should not be caging them up for any reason. Taking a moral position against experimenters is hard, since they seem to think it will kill little blonde girls with teddy bears. The truth is, it is not a choice between human and non-human. It is a choice be tween what is moral and scientifically just and that which is evil and scientifically fraudulent. It is a choice to back up the al ternatives to animal research and find real solutions. Chelsea Lincoln, a guest columnist for the Emerald, is the director of Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Her views do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper.