Let me speak plainly. Roughly half of all Americans think President Bush should be impeached. And more than half think Dick Cheney should be impeached. Congress does nothing. And some college newspaper writer in Colorado gets frustrated and publishes an editorial that says, in part, “Fuck Bush”. Big deal, right?
FORT COLLINS — Colorado State University’s student newspaper is dealing with fallout for using a four-letter word in an editorial on President Bush.
The Coloradoan reports that the Rocky Mountain Collegian has lost $30,000 in advertising and had to cut student employee pay and other budgets by ten percent.
Editor-in-Chief J. David McSwane says the newspaper’s advisers had no idea it planned to run the editorial Friday.
The time for deference to the office of the President has long since passed. And, yet, it costs a little college newspaper $30,000 just to point that out.
Boo I’ll bump this up later, okay? I just thought the Senate vote on Lieberman Kyl was more important at the moment.
Advertisers tend to be businesses, small or large.
Businessmen who control funds tend to be Republicans.
Republicans are still following Bush nose to ass like lemmings, and they’re heading for the cliff.
Q.E.D. Money has more power of speech in politics than people do. This isn’t the first $30,000 to be used as extortion to suppress freedom of speech.
you need to act like an adult.
The CSU editor did not act like an adult.
Now, I believe in attacking Bush. But only on the netroots does “Fuck BUSH” go. In print, it is immature, juvenile, stupid, and dumb. The editor should be chastised, and losing 30 K is chastising. Possibly he/she will act more adult in the future, and criticize Bush in a more adult manner.
I agree. Just not a smart thing for the editor to do. When you are a business with advertisers and subscribers, whose money is financing your business, there is a price to pay when you do something like this. If he wants to take his money and the money of those who support doing something like this and publish a screaming headline with those words, then fine. But when you are using other peoples money you will have to be accountable to them, in part, for your actions.
Dumb, just plain dumb.
Yeah. When your unelected “president” is a liar, cheat, and mass murderer, what matters is to act like an adult and go along to get along. Well, unless you’re an advertiser.
Advertising is not a charity. It’s a business decision. I hope the students organize a boycott of the advertisers that withdrew. If the university administration had any integrity and guts, which it won’t, it would withdraw all business and investments from these advertisers. I mean, why would they want to do business with outfits that can’t act like grownups?
That’s not the point.
The point is that criticism can be done well, or by a moron. When you are an editor of a newspaper that prints copies that sit on a curbside, and you have a huge headline that says, “Fuck BUSH”, you have just crossed the line. There are plenty of ways of saying exactly that with cleverness, good writing and which do not piss off advertisers.
Colorado is composed of equal parts hippie-dippie types and way way way right wingnut cowboy types. The money is found in class B, not Class A.
The editor fell into a classic trap which the right wing just loves. He did something that made himself the story. When that happens what you have say will never be heard by anyone. The media spotlight will stay focused on you by virtue of the shock factor of the headline. You’ve already lost the fight.
This is the kind of stuff that some people on our side do that makes the Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s just laugh and laugh and laugh to themselves at how we can smack ourselves in the head and then wonder why we have a headache.
In my opinion it is self defeating and not very bright, even if I agree with his sentiment.
Fuck Bush.
Just cause it needs to be said.
How do I send the Colorado State newspaper some money?
The phrase “leading with your chin” refers to a strategy (?) of making yourself a target. In this case, this editor lost sente (the initiative) by changing the conversation. Instead of “how bad is Bush” the topic is now “how stupid is this editor.” When you lead with your chin like this editor, you lose 3 ways:
This is why MoveOn made such a terrible error with their ad, and why Dan Rather’s attempt to getting Bush with forged documents was such an error.
Do not lead with your chin. Keep your chin tucked in and do not make more targets with your comments than you can defend.
The phrase “leading with your chin” refers to a strategy (?) of making yourself a target. In this case, this editor lost sente (the initiative) by changing the conversation. Instead of “how bad is Bush” the topic is now “how stupid is this editor.” When you lead with your chin like this editor, you lose 3 ways:
This is why MoveOn made such a terrible error with their ad, and why Dan Rather’s attempt to getting Bush with forged documents was such an error.
Do not lead with your chin. Keep your chin tucked in and do not make more targets with your comments than you can defend.