I v. 1 r.
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Thursday, October 16,2003
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Ian Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
EDITORIAL
Printing fan's
name harmful,
unprofessional
Wednesday was a bad day to be a journalist.
The Chicago Sun-Times, a respected newspaper in a major
U S. city, made the decision to publish the name of the infa
mous Chicago Cubs fan who tried to catch a foul ball during
Tuesday night's baseball league championship game
Cubs left fielder Moises Alou tried to make a play on the
ball in the eighth inning, but the fan got there first. The ball
wasn't caught, the Florida Marlins scored eight inns that in
ning, and the Cubs lost the game.
FOX, the station airing the National Ijeague Championship
Series, showed the replay again and again, putting the man's
picture in millions of households across the nation.
Later, the cameras showed the man being heckled by
nearby fans. Angry attendees cast cups of beer and verbal
abuse at the man, who had to be escorted out of the stadi
um by security officers.
Of course, he was not alone in reaching for the ball.
Many other fans grabbed for the playoff souvenir, but only
one man was unlucky enough to touch it.
The ball was in the stands, and the umpire ruled that
there was no fan interference The man likely did cost the
Cubs an out, and possibly the game. But, to be perfectly
clear, the individual did absolutely nothing wrong.
Wednesday morning, the Sun-Times published the gen
tleman's name and age. The paper reported where he works
and lives. The reporters went to the home where friends
and a neighbor said he grew up. They interviewed neigh
bors and acquaintances of the man after he could not be
reached for comment.
Hours after the story was published, the individual is
sued a public statement in which he released his own name
and expressed remorse for the incident. It's not clear
whether the individual would have come forward, were it
not for the earlier article.
It would have been disturbing enough to see the man's
name briefly mentioned in the text of the game-recap story,
rhe decision to investigate the man and publish such per
sonal facts is downright sickening.
Journalists have responsibilities. Most papers don't pub
lish the names of rape victims to protea their privacy. If such
an arrangement has been previously agreed upon, journalists
won't reveal the name of a source to protea the individual
from persecution. These situations can ga tricky, and the rule
of thumb is generally this: Is the need to identify the person
greater than the harm caused by naming him or her?
Journalists must then weigh their options. Does the pub
lic's need to know outweigh the person's right to privacy?
Would identifying the individual help solve a crime or a
missing-person case? Would identifying the person com
promise the individual's ability to live a normal life? Or,
perhaps most importantly, would identifying the individ
ual bring the person undue harm?
Depending on the answers, journalists and editors have to
make difficult decisions. Sometimes a paper has to do what it
thinks is right, even if some people disagree with the decision.
On Wednesday, the Chicago Sun-Times made the wrong
decision. There was no justification for running the story.
"It is the biggest news story in town, and this is Chicago,"
the Sun-limes editor in chief told Editor & Publisher, a wide
ly read journalism magazine. "We talked about it for a litde
while and came down on the side of publishing it. It was not
100 to zero, but the decision was made, and on we go."
'rhe man will be lucky to go on — the paper unduly sub
jeaed him to the possibility of harm.
rhe very same unruly fans who assaulted the individual
during Tuesday's game are now armed with his personal
information. Sports fans sometimes riot when their team
wins. To then consider what angry Cubs fans could do —
especially considering that the Cubs lost the series Wednes
day night — is unthinkable.
Perhaps the man should have kept his hands to himself,
given the significance of the play. But his decision is forgettable
when compared with the sickening actions of the Sun-Times.
As enticing as it may be to stoop to the Sun- limes' level, in
tegrity won't permit it. Instead, here are only the names and e
mail addresses of the story's authors and editor Annie Sweeney
(asweeney@suntimes.com), Frank Main (frnain@
suntimes.com), Chris Fusco (cflisco@suntimes.com) and
Michael Cooke (mcooke@suntimes.com).
Perhaps some of the attention should be diverted to
these individuals, the potential harm they may have caused
the Cubs fan and the disservice they did to the profession
of journalism.
_
A war against poetry
It's not the first (truth), and it's not the
second (human beings), but poetry has
become one of the casualties of war.
Many a foolhardy critic has penned "po
etry is dead," only to have it rise again from
its coffin. I know this. I’m aware that this
mission is sure suicide. But ever since read
ing the following poetic lines dealing with
the war in Iraq, I've lost the will to live:
"Isn't it their duty to their Country /
more to become a poet / than a brain
washed murder robot?"
"Why don't you tell those bastards not
to fight? For Pete's sake, send an angel!
Bum a bush!"
"I weep for justice."
"Tell these eerie people that killing chil
dren is wrong, that the U S. becomes
everyday more and more frightful."
Amateurs did not write these verses, nor
preschoolers; they belong to past and pres
ent poets laureate in work collected by the
organization Poets Against the War.
The PAW movement began in late Janu
ary when Sam I Iamill, longtime poet and
pacifist, received an invitation from Laura
Bush to attend a poetry symposium at the
White Mouse. I lamill declined in protest
and asked his friends to write poems
against war and the administration, which
he could then send to the First Lady.
Within a week, over 1,500 poets re
sponded, and by the beginning of March,
Ilamill had collected and posted over
13,000 anti-war poems on his Web site
www.poetsagainsttliewar.org. PAW has
since created an anthology of the best anti
war poems from the site and recently pub
lished a companion book entitled "Rais
ing Our Voices" that exclusively features
Oregonian anti-war poets.
Let me be clear: My criticism is not about
their politics; 1 too am against the war in
Iraq and the policy of preemption. My criti
cism, put plainly, is: Their poetry sucks.
Over 99 percent of these poems are little
more than glorified protest signs. Some
use flowery language and elitist metaphor
to say nothing more than "war bad," while
others dispense with the pretense and go
straight to partisan name-calling.
W.S. Merwin calls Bush "a fraud," and
Lawrence Ferlinghetti calls his administra
tion "the terrorists in Washington." 1
found quite a few "bastards," a peppering
of "monsters," a "tin-pot tyrant," "usurp
er" and the old favorite of the left, "com
mander-in-thief." Using gross hyperbole
and moronic simplicity, these poems de
clare that Bush "wants blood," has a "re
lentless appetite for war" and desires war
to "appease his fury." One poem com
pared him to Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.
These words don't sound like they came
from the mouths of poets. These sound like
words I would say. That's exactly the kind of
ranting tripe that us dime-a-dozen opinion
columnists use to satisfy our quotas. Should
n't we expect more from poets? I know I do.
If not, then Michael Moore, Molly Ivans
and Jim Hightower should be the greatest
poets of the modem era. Ihe person who
came up with the phrase "Resident Bush"
should win a Pulitzer.
Can good poetry be political? Absolute
ly! But it must dig deeper than "war bad,"
"racism bad" and/or "sexism bad." I agree
■£. AM so
AZXISTIC
Steve Baggs Illustrator
that all art is political. But the flipside is
that only bad art is only political.
As 1 was wandering aimlessly through
the 14,000 anti-war poems, banging my
head against the desk with each trite verse,
I ran across this poem by Katha Pollit:
"What goo<4 are more poems against
war / the real subject of which / so often
seems to be the poet's superior / moral
sensitivities?" Is it great? Not really. But at
least she understands that the nature of a
poem is not to be a political statement but
David Jagernauth
Critical mass
rather to be a statement on the political.
Most of the poets in the PAW anthology
do not seem to appreciate the distinction.
They speak as if they were Southerners
proclaiming that God is an American. For
example, the great Stanley Kunitz said in
an interview, "(War is) contrary to the hu
manitarian position that is at the center of
the poetic impulse." Poet Li-Young Lee sec
onds his sentiment: "The way I understand
poetry, all poems are anti-war poems."
This New Age-y nonsense is dangerous.
Soon we will only have writing about what
should be (peace) rather than insights into
what is and has been (war). Soon everyone
will speak of poetry as David Kirby does:
"The value of poetry is it can say what is
true in a really quick, concise way."
The art of quick truth and easy answers.
If this is the future, then I feel confident to
prophesize poetry's looming demise.
The irony in all this is that President
Bush is somewhat of a poet in his own
right. Check out this love poem he wrote
for his wife while she was traveling
through Europe not so long ago:
"Roses are red / violets are blue / oh my
lump in the bed / 1 miss you. / The dis
tance, my dear / has been such a barrier /
next time you want an adventure / just
land on a carrier."
Not everyone was impressed with the
President's poem and his ability to rhyme.
Canada's poet laureate George Bowering,
for one, offered a bit of constructive criti
cism: "He's not anywhere near a poet. It is
just absolutely horrible."
I've already quoted one of Bowering's po
ems, the one about how killing children is
wrong. What wordsmith worth his or her
salt would describe child-killers as "eerie
people?" Invest in a thesaurus you Canadi
an bastard, you monster, you fraud!
I wish these poets had attended Laura
Bush's poetry symposium, so that they
could reacquaint themselves with the true
voice of a poet.
"Did we think victory great? / So it is —
but now it seems to me, when it cannot be
help'd, that defeat is great / And that death
and dismay are great."
Whitman displays more wisdom in
those few lines than can be found in all
14,000 anti-war poems. That's because the
PAW poets are propagandists, not artists.
And though I appreciate their message, I
deplore their exploitation of poetry to
serve a narrow political agenda. They think
they are empowering art, but in reality
they belittle it: Poets Against the War is rag
ing an all-out war against poetry.
And all I have to say is: "Bring 'em on!"
Contact the columnist
at djagemauth@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily represent
those of the Emerald.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
"Racial battlefield” a myth
History may be in columnist David
Jagemauth's blood, but it is hatred and
racial collectivism that is in his mind, and
subsequently his pen. He describes our
university as a racial battlefield in his Oct.
2 column ("Schoolhouse discrimination,"
ODE), not the gateway to opportunity that
it truly is. Only the irrationality of racial
collectivism would allow him to write
such a perversion.
I am a freshman at the University. My
first week here has been filled with
glimpses of great things to come and not
visions of a desperate batdefield. The ex
perience has been altogether liberating.
Maybe your professors don't really want
you to "minimize" your "racial memories."
Maybe they want you to maximize your in
dividualistic capacity for independence
Freedom doesn't lie in racial incentives
and certainly not in racial warfare. It lies in
the power of the individual to think and
act for himself. Plenty of white people re
late to your "historical feeling." But an in
dividualist of any race doesn't act on his
feelings, he acts on reason, which your call
to arms is sorely lacking.
I find it sickening that you would asso
ciate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with this
column. He was a man of peace. Your
"reasoning" can only result in war. He
valued the content of a man's character
over the color of his skin. As your gener
alizations about white students show,
you believe skin color determines a man's
ideas. There is a time for that belief. It is
called the Stone Age.
Chris Potter
Pre-journalism