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Email: editor@dailyemerald.com
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-OregonDailyEmerald
Commentary
Editor in Chief:
Michael J. Kleckner
Managing Editor:
Jessica Richelderfer
Editorial Page Assistant:
Salena De La Cruz
Friday, April 4,2003
Suicide leaves
us all wishing
we could help
It’s hard to know where to begin talking about the suicide of
a student. Unfortunately, it happened here. Eric Dylan Jones
took his own life, and the action is important to discuss.
So far, the Emerald has printed two rather different ac
counts of the events that unfolded March 1. Neither of them
were witnessed by our reporters and neither of them have
been confirmed by a court case; they are the words of people
associated with the case.
One side, represented by Jones’ girlfriend—who says she
was present for the incident — claims Jones was coming to
the defense of his friends, threatened by intoxicated people.
The other side, represented by football head coach Mike Bel
lotti and EPD spokeswoman Kerry Delf—neither of whom
claim to have been present—say the attack appeared to be
unprovoked or was a “‘sucker-punch’ type attack,” from Delf
and Bellotti, respectively.
It is no one’s place — including our own — to pass some
sort of ultimate judgment about the incident if they weren’t
there. Everyone can sift through the available information,
the past history of all the parties involved and try to figure out
what’s right.
But surely this incident couldn’t have been the only thing
that drove Jones to commit suicide. If he had turned himself in
and mounted a defense with witnesses, what would the worst
outcome have been? If his friends had come forward immedi
ately with a different version of the story, couldn’t the public
image of Jones have been spared, or at least countered? What
if the press hadn’t found out Jones’ identity for a few more
days? Might he have turned himself in and still be alive?
All of this is Sunday quarterbacking. Maybe things could
have been different. Maybe Bellotti could have waited for a le
gal forum to make comments proclaiming the “truth” of the
event, especially when no rebuttal was available. But of more
concern, perhaps, is how this incident became the final straw
in a young man’s life, and no one was able to stop it.
That is always the sadness of suicide, regardless of individ
ual beliefs about its morality or about the worth of living in
general. Those who loved the person wonder if they couldn’t
have done something different, something to change his or
her mind.
i ne community snouia taKe a moment ana remind them
selves of some of the myths about suicide. Here are a few,
courtesy of the University of Oregon Crisis Center:
• Myth: People who talk about killing themselves rarely
commit suicide.
Fact: Most people who commit suicide have given some
verbal clues or warning of their intention.
• Myth: The suicidal person wants to die and feels that
there is no turning back.
Fact: Suicidal people are usually ambivalent about dying
and frequendy will seek help immediately after attempting to
harm themselves.
• Myth: If you ask someone about their suicidal intentions,
you will only encourage them to kill themselves.
Fact: Actually the opposite is true. Asking someone direct
ly about their suicidal intentions will often lower their anxiety
level and act as a deterrent to suicidal behavior by encourag
ing the ventilation of pent-up emotions through a frank dis
cussion of their problems.
• Myth: Suicidal people rarely seek medical attention.
Fact: Research has consistendy shown that about 75 per
cent of suicidal people will visit a physician within the month
before they kill themselves.
• Myth: Once someone attempts suicide, that person will
always entertain thoughts of suicide.
Fact: Most people who are suicidal are so for only a very
brief period once in their lives. If the person receives the
proper support and assistance, he or she will probably
never be suicidal again.
The bottom line: If friends show signs of needing help,
be there. With information and assistance, anyone can
help a loved one who is feeling suicidal. Plenty of re
sources are available right here on campus, starting with
the Crisis Center. Their Web site is at http://www.uore
gon.edu/~counsel/uocrisis.htm. A search of the Inter
net yields hundreds of sites devoted to suicide preven
tion resources.
If you feel in crisis now, call the Crisis Center at 346-4488
or Whitebird at 687-4000.
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board.
REMEMBER
I Dm UNDERSTAND WHY THOSE IRAQIS
CONTINUE TO FI&HT FOR SADDAM.
DRUNK ON NATIONALISM?
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT ?
Peter Utsey Emerald
Concerns about our election coverage
My smiling face is shining out from this
page once again this week because I want
to be absolutely clear about our intent
and our behavior with regard to the ASUO
election stories that are currendy running
every day in the Emerald. We have re
ceived some complaints and concerns
(see below), and I want there to be no mis
understandings.
Given 17 races
and more than 60
candidates to inter
view, we’ve had to
condense. We took
15-30 minutes
worth of interview
and distilled it down
to just a few inches
for each person. We
selected only a few of
the questions to
print, based on
which received the
most complete or involved answers from
the candidates. Then we removed the
“umms” and “uhs,” and fixed sentences
that went nowhere. Then we shortened the
interviews—often to less than one-third of
their original size. We simply don’t have the
space to print everything.
For the record, this process is exactly
what journalists do every day—not just for
ASUO elections. The art of news is to sort
and sift, and to present, in a fair and bal
anced manner, the representative portions
of events in the world, so that a six-hour
“support the troops” rally, for instance, can
be turned into a digestable news story.
The important thing, as recognized by
the Supreme Court, is that reporters not
Michael J.
Kleckner
The editors office
distort the meaning or intent of the speaker
by any cutting or “cleaning up” of the
quotes. I stand by my staff in this case —
we have not altered anyone’s meaning.
And don’t be fooled: Rarely do readers
get a complete, original quote that is unal
tered in every way. Often, newspapers use
ellipses (“...”) to indicate where they have
cut material out. We do that in regular sto
ries. In Q&A interviews, however, we do
not. It is our assumption that readers know
full well they aren’t getting every noise ut
tered by the interviewee.
On our Web site, however, we have the
full transcripts of the interviews. These are
nearly verbatim. For clarity’s sake, we did
remove the “umms” and “ahs,” and we did
add punctuation to aid in understanding
sentence fragments. To read these, go to
www.dailyemerald.com, mouse-over the
“News” link, and when the menu pops up,
click on “ASUO elections.”
As I said earlier, we have received
some complaints and concerns about
the coverage. Some of this has to do with
genuine errors on our part. For those, I
apologize. Errors happen, and we regret
that part of life. We will correct them as
soon as we are informed of them (or rec
ognize them ourselves).
I won’t print any of the complainant’s
names, and here’s why: ASUO Elections
Rules 2003, Section 6.12. The rule says
that no candidate can use any campus re
source to promote their candidacy if the
other candidates can’t also have equal ac
cess to that resource.
What does all that mean? It means we
don’t have the space in the newspaper to
print comments and complaints from
every candidate. So I am not allowing it
from any candidate. Likewise with letters of
endorsement: Candidates can have their
friends write letters, but we will not print
any signed by a candidate, because we can
not guarantee the space to print one from
every candidate.
I will tell you we received concerns about
our editing, which led to my earlier expla
nations. The other concern we heard was
anger or frustration with the two questions
we had for finance senators regarding rules.
Let me explain our thinking.
Rules were a concern for senators this
year — not because anyone was grossly
negligent or because the rules were abused,
but because they do have an importance
and sometimes they are confusing. So we
wanted to see whether people were familiar
with the senate rules.
We were careful, however, not to say
whether this makes a candidate more or
less qualified for office. Such a judgment is
for readers to make. We do not necessarily
believe a candidate is automatically more
or less qualified because of their ability or
inability to answer rules questions.
However, candidates expecting to win
the right to spend millions of dollars in stu
dent fees shouldn’t balk at the idea of an
swering questions about the rules that gov
ern the office for which they’re running. I’m
sorry, but that’s what I think. This is poli
tics. We were fair in our application of the
questions, and we gave them very little
space in the stories.
So concludes my explanation. Please
continue to contact me with questions or
concerns about our coverage. That’s what
makes a newspaper part of the community.