Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Suite 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
Email: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
www.dailyemerald.com
Monday, November 25,2002
-Oregon Daily Emerald
Commentary
Editor in Chief:
Michael J. Kleckner
Managing Editor
Jessica Richelderfer
Editorial Editors:
Salena De La Cruz, Pat Payne
Editorial
‘Big Brother’
is watching us;
‘security’takes
privacy away
Has the world of George Orwell’s “1984” come to
pass with the recent passage of the homeland de
fense bill? Perhaps it doesn’t legislate authoritari
anism, but the combination of a denial of informa
tion to Americans along with the increased
collection of their personal information by the gov
ernment could lend itself all too well to abuse by a
“Big Brother” figure.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush
has spearheaded efforts to bring together various
people and agencies that may be important as a co
hesive unit for combating terrorism.
Although the editorial board is supportive of ef
forts that would actually enhance people’s safety,
many of the measures enshrined in the homeland
defense bill, in conjunction with the now nearly
year-old USA Patriot Act, should scare Americans.
The Pentagon, under former Adm. John
Poindexter, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal,
has been given permission to keep a massive data
base, called the Total Information Awareness pro
gram, which would collate the personal details of
Americans’ lives.
in cany every purenase people maKe, every event
they attend, every e-mail they send, the departure
and destination for every flight they take, will all go
into this database. As The Police song goes: “Every
breath you take / every move you make / I’ll be
watching you.”
The government says the database is benign — it
might allow them to “put the puzzle together” be
fore another terrorist attack — but it would still be
any KGB or Gestapo man’s dream come true. Its
own motto, in fact, shows the danger as well as the
potential: “Knowledge is Power.”
More worrisome, though, is that just as more pri
vate information is being collected, knowledge
about the government is being hidden. The home
land defense bill allows any information now freely
available through the Freedom of Information Act
to be deemed a “potential security weakness” and
brought back under the cloak of secrecy. And the
rub: Only the department decides what a “poten
tial security weakness” is, precisely.
These two new proposals show almost limitless
bounds for abuse. Will embarrassing information
be suppressed under color of “security weakness,”
and then anyone requesting that information (for
instance, journalists) be hounded through the Total
Information Awareness program? Will the next
group of “plumbers” getting dirt on a rival political
candidate walk into the Pentagon rather than
sneak into the Watergate?
Americans have good reason to be afraid of their
government given these new marching orders.
They should speak out, and the Bush administra
tion should rethink these authoritarian measures
before the slope becomes any more slippery.
Editorial policy
Emerald editorial board, Responses can Nil
sent to letters @dailyemerald.com. Letters
to the editor and guest commentaries are
encouraged.
IM
The story “EPD issues fewer citation
pat rols* (ODt, Nov. 22> Should have said that tile
Eugene Police Department has eliminated the
overtime officers on the West University Focused l
Patrol, but the patrol itself has neither concluded^
An apology to the community
I’ll say it once again: The Emerald is
run by students, and we’re learning.
Sometimes learning means not just
acquiring more training, but also tak
ing your lumps and apologizing when
it’s deserved.
Michael J.
Kleckner
The editor’s office
And the paper does owe an apology.
Here’s the situation: On Thursday, the
Emerald published a front-page story with
two photos, covering Wednesday’s anti
war rally in the EMU Amphitheater organ
ized by Students for
Peace, which took
place in conjunction
with the National
Student/Youth Day of
Action.
The headline was,
“Adding their voic
es.” One of the pho
tos was of the crowd
in the amphitheater,
and the other was of
protesters in front of
Johnson Hall after a
march that followed the rally.
Both of the photos were terribly inac
curate in their portrayal of the events of
the day. Both pictures were true and
unretouched, but they showed a skewed
representation of what actually
occurred. For this, I apologize.
The crowd shot was zoomed-in close,
and the dominant part of the image was
of at least five counterprotesters carry
ing “Bush/Cheney” signs and holding a
handwritten sign that said, “UO
Students Support America.” Only one
person in the picture was identifiable as
an anti-war protester, carrying a sign
that read, “No War.”
This image was unfair and unrepre
sentative because at least 300 students,
by our count (and more than 500,
according to KVAL-TV), attended the
rally protesting against war. A fair and
balanced overview photograph of.the
event would have included almost
entirely anti-war protesters and only a
few counterprotesters.
The Johnson Hall photograph was
taken minutes after the marchers had left
the front steps of the building, and only a
few students were in the photo, even
though many more were actually there.
Fortunately, the story was fair and
representative. Unfortunately, some
readers don’t read the whole story, and a
smaller number of people don’t even
read it all — they glance at the pictures
and headlines.
To a student who had not been on
campus Wednesday, our coverage could
have made it seem that the whole event
was “Bush/Cheney” supporters
“Adding their voices” to the debate
about war, or that only a few people
showed up to protest war. That is not a
fair characterization of the event, and
the photographs we selected should
have shown the full picture of what
happened at the rally.
To me, this is not a political issue,
although politics has been injected into
the discussions that I had last week with
members of Students for Peace. As I see
it, we unfairly and inaccurately repre
sented a student group’s public event,
and that should not happen. Student
groups are the University’s community
groups — they function like a city’s non
profit groups, arts organizations and cul
tural outreach programs.
For many student groups, an event is
the only large-scale public face they
present to the community. As a commu
nity newspaper covering the University,
then, we have a special obligation, when
we cover these events, to portray them
fairly and accurately. When we don’t,
we’re failing as journalists and as com
munity members.
Unfortunately, though, this event was
about a political issue, and a controver
sial issue of life-or-death importance, at
that. I can affirm that this error was not
done on purpose or with political
motives, and I can tell you why.
The Emerald newsroom has students
representing a broad cross-section of
political views, from one end of the
spectrum to the other. We work hard
daily to keep each other in check and
make sure that our decisions about the
news are not made in deference to our
ideologies, but that we have journalistic
reasons for why we write stories, how we
cover issues and how we decide place
ment of stories in the paper. Otherwise,
again, we would be failing as journalists.
That process of arguing journalism
values happened on Wednesday just like
every other day. Unfortunately, we fell
down when it came to being sure the
photos were fair.
I also know this misrepresentation
wasn’t purposeful because a string of
small errors, procedural problems and
oversights led to it. Many hands were
involved all along the way in creating
this giant mistake, and those hands were
not all of a like mind, politically.
So I am taking this space today to
apologize to Students for Peace for mis
representing their event. I am sorry it
happened. I also apologize to all of our
readers, who should be able to — and
can, usually — rely on our headlines,
photographs and stories to be an accu
rate depiction of the world.
I have taken steps within thp news
room to ensure this doesn’t happen
again, to any group at any event. And I
offer thanks to everyone who brought
the mistake to my attention.
Communities should take a more
active role in keeping the media hon
est, and I’m glad members of the cam
pus community are so involved with
their news sources.
Michael J. Kleckner is the editor in chief
of the Emerald. Send your concerns
about Emerald coverage or content
to editor@dailyemerald.com.
Online poll
Each Monday, the Emerald
publishes the previous
week’s poll results and
the coming week’s poll
question. Visit www.dai
lyemeraid.com to vote.
Last week: How should
the University handle
KUGN’s promoting itself
as ’’the voice of the
Ducks"?
Results: 79 total votes
Do nothing, it’s a censor
ship issue — 41.8 per
cent, or 33 votes
Make KUCN change the
slogan — 16.5 percent,
or 13 votes
Make KUCN drop the
Medved and Savage
shows — 10.1 percent,
or 8 votes
End affiliation with KUCN
— 25.3 percent, or 20
votes
Don’t know — 3.8 per
cent, or 3 votes
Leave me alone! — 2.5
percent, or 2 votes
This week; Should the
University start classes
earlier in order to end fall
term in time for
Thanksgiving?
Choices: Yes; No; Don’t
know; Leave me alone!
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Steve Baggs Emerald