The Colorado State University editor who used the F-word in the student newspaper will keep his job.
My biggest reaction to the editorial was not simply that it used the F-word, it’s that the editorial was so poorly framed — it consisted entirely of four words, “Taser this … F*** BUSH.” I’m sure the phrasing was simply intended to be topical, but it nevertheless seems to suggest that Bush was somehow responsible for the recent incident in which security guards used a Taser on a student who disrupted a speech by John Kerry. There are plenty of less sloppy, more coherent ways to make a statement about politics.
I feel for the other students who lost their jobs after the paper lost advertising income over the incident, and I don’t think McSwane showed good judgment, but the whole point of having a student paper is to give students the opportunity to make decisions on their own, and to take responsibility for those decisions. McSwane and his staff have certainly had the opportunity to learn from the experience.
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Yes, I'm glad to be living in a country where people don't get arrested for making political statements. I presume McSwane worked hard to get the top editor job, and thus earned the right to decide how to use his platform.
It's the equivalent of graffito. I think the administrator's handled it in the right way.
Yet, in a way, I have to admire the editors chutzpah a little bit, despite the sophomoric use of an expletive. If you read it as a statement about the "tasing" rather than any bombast about Bush, then it's a brilliantly succinct statement about freedom of the press, because the printed word cannot be "tasered" the way a person in a public forum can be yoked by the goons with extreme measures, "chilling" audiences so that they'll be afraid to speak their minds.
Of course, I've seen the video of the chap who was tasered and, well, he probably enjoyed his moment in the spotlight. And maybe he deserved the jolt. But the editor of the paper? He deserves the attention he's getting, pro and con.