Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, October 7, 2004
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The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub
lished daily Monday through Fri
day during the school year by the
Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing
Co. Inc., at the University of Ore
gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald
operates independently of the
University with offices in Suite
300 of the Erb Memorial Union.
The Emerald is private property.
Unlawful removal or use of
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warning:
UNACCEPTABLE DISPLAY
Bret Furtwancler I Graphics editor
■ In my opinion
Priest brawl — When
rules overshadow values
News — interesting news — is very
often about conflict. Activists, crimi
nals, bidders, ideologues, lawyers,
policy-makers, executives, politicians,
PACs, political parties, states, nations
and alliances argue, yell, debate, con
nive, sue, sanction and bomb each
other in a pursuit of whatever it is
they want at the time: Whether at the
auction block or the trading bloc, if
it’s a big conflict, it’s newsworthy.
The past two weeks were no excep
tion: Militants in Iraq claimed respon
sibility for killing two hostages Mon
day. Amnesty International charged
Canada with “terrible official indiffer
ence and apathy” toward attacks
against aboriginal women that AI de
scribed as brutal, citing at least 500
cases of vanishing and murders over
the past three decades. Gov. Jeb
Bush, R-Fla., requested a re-hearing
in the case involving Terri Schiavo, a
brain-damaged woman whose hus
band has fought in courts to let her
die. And, of course, President Bush
and Democratic presidential nominee
John Kerry traded blows in last
Thursday’s foreign policy presidential
debate.
Of course, that conflict can be news
isn’t, well, news at all. I’d like to
spend this space, then, talking about
conflict of a less philosophically con
sistent sort, one largely overlooked by
the media in favor of stories more
newsworthy but no more potentially
instructive.
At the Church of the Holy Sepul
cher in Jerusalem’s Old City — ac
cording to tradition the site of Jesus’
burial and crucifixion — priests of
different sects traded punches Sept.
27 over whether a door at a nearby
TRAVIS WILLSE
RIVALLESS WIT
Catholic chapel should remain open
during a particular procession, the
priests presumably forgetting their
Biblical obligation to “make every ef
fort to do what leads to peace and
mutual edification.” ,
That Greek Orthodox and Francis
can priests resorted to fisticuffsman
ship — starting a fight that ultimately
injured dozens — on what many con
sider Christianity’s holiest site sug
gests not only that a few clergymen’s
moral compasses temporarily drifted
away from commonsense north, but
something deeper about human na
ture, too.
Despite the importance of the site
— indeed, in part because of it — this
isn’t the first time in the church’s his
tory that clerics have curled their
prayer hands into clenched fists over
dogmatic minutiae.
Two years ago, a Greek patriarch
and an Armenian clergyman traded
blows over which of them would
leave the building’s tomb last at the
end of the ceremony. In 2003, Israeli
police brokered an 11th hour deal
among denominations arguing over
which would lead an Easter service.
But in the most recent spat, the day
ended when Israeli police brandished
clubs to break up the fight, arresting
four priests in the process.
The point is this: It’s easy to get so
lost in the details — like whether the
door of a basilica should remain open
when a particular religious progres
sion passes — that one forgets about
the important thing those details add
up to — say, messages of peace, piety
and goodwill toward men. People
who operate under rules can become
so preoccupied with them that those
rules provoke behavior that conflicts
with the reasons that they were estab
lished.
To offer an intentionally politically
sensitive example (and one admitted
ly oversimplified here for the sake of
space): Muckraker extraordinaire Bob
Woodward argued in his book “Plan
of Attack” that the Bush administra
tion so fixated itself with presenting a
case for war with Iraq that it failed to
plan sufficiently for the post-invasion
occupation. (The point here is not
whether the war with Iraq was justi
fied, but that an ill-timed preoccupa
tion has plainly and unduly burdened
the Coalition — and America in par
ticular — with a strategic deficit that
is now being paid for in lives. That
shortfall and human toll surely leave
the Coalition’s goals in Iraq more dif
ficult, if not less popular, too.)
Instructively, if religious motiva
tion, however misguided or antitheti
cal to a given religion’s “intended” or
“actual” values', is enough to push
clerics to a brawl over something as
innocuous as the closure of a door,
it’s at least easier to see why the per
ception of a more dramatic conflict of
values can drive misguided fanatics
to much worse than a street scuffle.
traviswillse@ daily emerald, com
CORRECTION
In Wednesday's issue, the Emerald mistakenly reported that congressional candidate Peter DeFazio attended a gathering in the Knight Law Center on
Tuesday. He was not present at the gathering. The Emerald regrets the error.
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■ Editorial
Balanced
coverage is
what we've
done best
Imagine if lawyers learned their trade by
defending axe murders on their first day of
class. Or if doctors did open heart surgery.
But that is exactly what journalists do. We
learn our craft — whether reporting, editing
or designing — in front of tens of thousands
of readers every day, day in and day out.
This election year is our axe murderer, our
open heart surgery. We feel fortunate to be
working at the Emerald during this historic
time. We take our responsibilities seriously.
That is why we also take accusations of bias
so seriously, which have been leveled at the
Emerald’s election coverage.
Accusations of bias come with the territo
ry at all newspapers, just like death threats
and telephone calls from the mentally ill.
Every politically charged story is met with
these kinds of accusations. It happens so of
ten that when we get attacked from both De
mocrats and Republicans at the same time
— which is exactly what has happened —
we feel as if we are being balanced.
But that is not good enough for us. More
often than not, accusations of bias are the
product of a lack of transparency or under
standing or both. In the interest of becoming
more transparent, the Emerald board would
like to lay the cards out on the table.
Our editorial board is diverse politically.
We have at least one member that supports
Kerry and Bush, as well as neither candi
date. We have a self-imposed policy of una
nimity, meaning the board will not publish
an editorial unless all members of the board
agree with its conclusions.
This is quite an experiment — given the
fierce ideological divisions in the country —
and will result either in clever editorials that
perfectly articulate our common ground or
watered-down editorials that are a waste of
time and ink. We will let you decide.
The commentary editor has made every ef
fort to present multiple political sides on the
commentary page, and the Emerald encour
ages all of our readers to write to the paper.
However, the bulk of the letters we receive
have a liberal slant. In fact, as of today, we
have received no publishable pro-Bush letters.
We have developed a strategy for covering
the elections that we feel is responsible and an
improvement on the coverage traditionally
provided — focusing less on the horse-race
and more on the issues. Every day for the next
two weeks, we will look at a different issue
and see where the candidates stand. Follow
ing that, we will spend an entire week focus
ing on the major ballot measures. By focusing
on the issues, we hope to give people the in
formation they need to make an informed de
cision. But we have no desire to influence the
election one way or the other.
So far, our coverage has spent more time
on Democrats than Republicans, which has
been the subject of much discussion. This is
a function of how well-organized the De
mocrats have been on campus in organizing
events and speakers.
This is a marked contrast from spring
term, when the Republicans were more or
ganized and active. When our coverage re
flected that, we were accused of bias.
We will make mistakes, and when we do,
we will be open about it. But accusations of
willful, institutional bias at the Emerald are
ignorant and misinformed. So far, our cover
age of the presidential election can stand
shoulder to shoulder with any college news
paper in the country. If you don't agree, we
welcome your feedback.