Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Policy, Not Politics Should Determine Paper’s Content

A newspaper has absolute discretion over everything that appears within its pages. How it uses that discretion determines what sort of newspaper it is.

By targeting college newspapers with a provocative advertisement about slavery reparations, conservative columnist David Horowitz has asked campus journalists whether they run newspapers or political journals.

This is a question that many college newspapers, including The Hoya, may be forced to consider in coming weeks as Horowitz sends his advertisement to about 40 more papers across the country. Hopefully, these papers would affirm the tenets of professional, responsible journalism and decide that the ad could run. I know that as a member of The Hoya’s board of directors, that is the position that I would advocate.

The strongest reason to accept the ad is also the simplest: There is no reason for it not to run. Indeed, once a newspaper receives an advertisement, the expectation is that it will be printed. Unless, of course, there is a good reason not to accept the ad; the burden of proof is on the paper to show why a submitted ad should not be printed.

In making their decisions, newspaper editors should consider taste, ethics and laws – and apply these principles to the specific ad in question.

In the case of the Horowitz ad, no material within the ad is beyond the realm of good taste or civil discourse, and no material within the ad is libelous. Accepting and running the ad would not violate the ethics of journalism – exposing readers to words or views expressed in the ad would not do them more harm than good. As the university’s policy on speech and expression states, when it comes to discourse about controversial issues, “More is better.”

To pull the advertisement for reasons besides these would be to make a political statement and demonstrate an organizational bias, the worst enemy of an objective newspaper. How members of the board of directors feel about slavery reparations should not impact their decisions about whether or not to accept the ad.

University President Leo J. O’Donovan often calls the university a “marketplace of ideas,” and the Horowitz ad would test that notion. Instead of advertising a product or a service, Horowitz is attempting to advertise an idea – to use space within college newspapers to reach and influence readers. In the case of The Hoya, he could pay $1,500 in exchange for his ideas being printed in 10,000 issues of this newspaper.

That is part of the service that newspapers provide. Advertising content is, of course, differentiated from editorial content, but it is problematic to suggest that ads can be accepted or denied based on the product being advertised.

Just because we prefer one brand of shoes does not mean that we would turn away ads for other brands. The same should hold true for ideas.

Current Hoya policies make no restrictions regarding political or issue-oriented ads. If the board wishes to change the paper’s policies to prohibit this sort of advertising (which is quite common in many professional newspapers), then it should do that. But until that is done, the board is obligated to follow the guidelines in place.

Horowitz’s investment has paid off more than he could have hoped for; the debate has given him free press even at the campuses where his ad was rejected. When newspapers at some college campuses, including Brown University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, printed this ad, the decision fueled mob-like protests. Half of the papers that have run his ad have apologized.

These are alarming facts. The apologies signify some newspapers are not applying their policies as vigorously as they should. The mobs signify that some readers do not understand the value of dissenting opinions.

Perhaps most alarming is the fact that in not printing the ad, some newspapers are making the judgment that the issue of reparations is so decided that it need not be discussed. Newspaper editors seem in a better position than anyone to realize that there are two sides to every issue. If there is any place that such a discussion belongs, it is on college campuses, where students and faculty are constantly engaging in important and difficult debates about important, controversial issues.

The discourse of this debate has been accusatory and uninformed. The editors who don’t run the ad are not campus fascists and they are not censors – they are exercising their right to determine what goes into their papers. The editors who run it are not politically aligned with Horowitz and his conservative agenda – they are exercising their right to determine what goes into their papers.

The debate has been mislabeled. It is not about Horowitz’s freedom of speech; it is about the freedom of the press and how newspapers exercise that freedom. Horowitz does not have a right to get his ad printed in any newspaper, but any newspaper has a right to print his ad.

But no responsible paper would make a decision based solely on what it can do. The question is what it should do. When a newspaper has no good reason not to run an ad, then it should run that ad. Unless it wants to stop being a newspaper.

Tim Haggerty is a junior in the College and the editor in chief of The Hoya.

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