When Weinberg senior Steve Crowe’s letter to the editor ran May 6, the Forum page would not be short on content for several days. Crowe’s letter, which called on people to view the Holocaust as not just a crime against Jews but as “a crime against humanity — our humanity,” drew enough letters to fill a week’s worth of Forum pages.
One letter that went unpublished especially caught my eye. The letter questioned how the Forum page could publish a letter “expressing a radically unfounded viewpoint, which will clearly upset a large portion of the student body.” The controversy surrounding Crowe’s letter has led me to wonder whether or not readers comprehend the nature of the Forum page.
Every quarter the page markets itself as a “marketplace of ideas” — ideas that not everyone will agree with all the time. That’s the nature of debate.
It seems that many students here at Northwestern are pre-programmed to respond to any letter that takes a retrospective look at things like affirmative action and Israeli-Palestinian issues.
In this respect, The Daily faces an uphill battle in attempting to create grounds for an honest discussion of issues. Everyone’s views on issues like the Holocaust are not budging. Anyone who would dare throw those views into question is “anti-Semitic.”
Crowe’s letter achieved something that few other things do on the Forum page: It created a buzz and a desire to write letters. When the Forum page takes on the financial misgivings of the Associated Student Government, nary a peep is heard. All fury breaks lose though when a column comes out on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s mascot in the case of Bryan Tolles’ April 7 column “Illiniwek no stereotype, should stay.”
The letters to the editor section now is, unfortunately, largely filled with either shameless plugs or opinions everyone has heard a multitude of times.
We need more people with the guts and strength to take a stand, like Steve Crowe, and send letters in.
A knowledge gap
The City Desk recently has had a difficult time dealing with people at Evanston-Northwestern Healthcare. The people at ENH complain that they have been misrepresented in previous editions of The Daily. They are reluctant to speak to Daily reporters since we lack a faculty adviser.
What the people at ENH worry about has been brought on by The Daily itself. We often complain of the poor town-gown relations and how major Evanston players such as former Ald. Arthur Newman (1st) refuse to speak to The Daily.
As public editor, I have made an attempt to reach out to those at ENH and to the aldermen who have had complaints with our coverage by trying to explain how it is mutually beneficial to foster a relationship. Better to be quoted than not, I figure.
Yet The Daily shoots itself in the foot.
Edition after edition I notice slight errors that can change the meaning of a story or an inability to give individuals their correct title.
What’s to fault for this? The lack of knowledge reporters have of many issues that they cover.
Complex titles such as “associate athletic director for external affairs” instead just get credited as “athletic director” — not a malicious error on the part of the reporter, just a product of not grasping the nuances of a particular field, the two titles are likely analogous to the reporter.
There is a solution to this. Former Editor in Chief Elaine Helm held workshops to train reporters on the issues of handing sources and writing on deadline. These workshops no longer exist. They must return or else more people won’t want to talk to us.
And who can blame them?
Public Editor Troy Appel addresses reader concerns and queries. The opinions expressed here are his own. He can be reached at [email protected].
