Hypocrisy runs rampant

by Philip Elliott

Some lessons linger.

As I sat at my desk Friday afternoon and read the biting criticisms of "The Post’s"“Between the Sheets” column, I recalled an after-school conversation with my high school publications adviser.

While our current controversy over Brynn Burton’s relationship and dating column is fiercer and more reliant on personal attacks than the high-school controversy, the lesson remains that newspapers have a duty to print varied perspectives.

Sitting on a desk top in a Newton Falls High School classroom during Fall Quarter 1998, newspaper and yearbook adviser Carole Mazanetz looked across her desk and explained it’s the job of any news manager to back his or her reporters — even if the manager disagrees with the message.

“I may disagree with what you’re saying, but I’ll fight for your right to say it,” Maz told me.

Maz fought as only a veteran adviser can, liberally citing the few cases that oppose "Hazelwood,"the bastard decision of the First Amendment. While she personally opposed our stance on a high-school Homecoming, she helped us bully our way to the presses and defend our position.

Now, four years later, I find myself in that role, fighting to keep Burton’s “Between the Sheets” in our pages. While I disagree with her description of the Athens dating pool and the behavior of men, I plan to defend her First Amendment rights.

It’s not a question of law for "The Post."Rather, it’s an issue of content.

Readers who follow this, our Opinion page, will note its spectrum of ideas. "The Post"carries political views from the left and the right, personal reflections and humor. Many of the items carry an intellectual tone, arguing for academic positions. While I do not support all of them as a person, I do support as a journalist.

Burton, however, engages our campus in a conversation about dating on this campus. Many readers have complained "The Post"has lost its connection with its readers. This column, in my view, is a way to bring another perspective — one of a college female celebrating her sexuality instead of apologizing for it — to our pages. In many ways, I believe Burton’s column will be a coming-of-age series many readers will identify with by the end of its 10-week run.

And really, Burton’s column is mild in comparison to sex columns on other campuses. At Yale University, columnist Natalie Krinsky’s "Sex and the (Elm) City"deals with topics such as oral sex, beer pong and sex toys. At the "Yale Daily News,"the ever-raw Krinsky is among the growing number of “sexperts,” as The Associated Press notes in a Sept. 14 wire article.

At New York University, the student-run ••Washington Square News•• promotes their sex columnist on newspaper-box placards.

We at "The Post"refuse to go to these lengths. As one administrator reminded me, “With (First Amendment) rights come responsibilities.”

"The Post"does accept these responsibilities. I wish the campus community would accept our effort to connect with our campus community and to serve as a mirror of our community — even if that perspective is from a position different from the mainstream.

For a campus that preaches diversity in ethnic, socio-economic and philosophical backgrounds, this week has reaffirmed my long-held suspicion that this community is a lot of rhetoric with little result. The campus community embraces efforts to promote diversity in skin pigment but when ••The Post•• puts a previously unheard voice on its pages, we are lambasted.

I hope the situation teaches you as well as it taught me that hypocrisy runs rampant on this campus.

Other lessons — unfortunately — linger.

•• — Elliott, a senior journalism major and editor of "The Post,"wants to know your thoughts about the column. Send him an e-mail at philip.elliott@ohio.edu.••