Entry 4:

So about 45 seconds after my last message was posted, people started to tell me--via e-mail, in person, in "The Fray"--that the MTV ads are all over Chicago. Mea culpa. Although I take the bus in the mornings and walk home from work past all the buses, and occasionally take the El, they've managed to completely elude me.

I'd like to say that this is because I'm tuning out invasive, brain-sucking corporate messages (even from MTV, which you're right, Wesley, is relevant despite its detractors' constant, tired condemnation), but that's far from true. That is true online, though, which is the subject of part of the Wall Street Journal's e-commerce section today.  Not much new there, but it's a pretty comprehensive look at the bizarre ("click on this uninteresting inch-tall ugly picture and save our company!") world of online advertising.

One ad I'm pretty sure a lot of people would like to tune out is David Horowitz's slavery reparations ad. I read this morning that the University of Connecticut's Daily Campus is the latest to get hit with controversy: 60 people protested the paper's decision to run the ad, saying their student fees should no longer go to the paper.  

When I edited the weekly paper at Stetson University two years ago, we printed a horrifically racist and anti-Semitic letter. We didn't agree with the contents of the letter, of course, but we published it in the interest of free speech, hoping to stimulate debate on our chalk-white campus. There was definitely debate as a result, but it was about what the hell the newspaper staff was doing, not about racism or the related issues. In retrospect, I can totally see why the people of color on our campus were hurt and offended, and after a series of events too complicated to describe here, we apologized.

But at the same time, what that--and this whole David Horowitz fiasco/media frenzy--illustrated was that most people have a very limited idea about how journalism--collegiate and otherwise--should/could/does work. The idea that the newspaper should be editorially independent is lost on many people, including these latest protesters. The biggest conflict with student papers arises when the paper is part of the university--like at Stetson and UConn--and is not independent. Fees paid by students at least partially fund the paper, and there's a complex relationship with the university acting essentially as publisher. And so students, being consumers of the commodity now known as higher education, expect the newspaper to reflect only what they want to see, which is an unrealistic expectation if student media is to be media at all.

But maybe we should just be grateful that the students are doing something, anything, rather than sitting on their apathetic asses and waiting to collect their ticket to a corner office and a 401(k).

Andy