How do area newspapers balance community sensitivities and issues of free speech? Editors and a journalism professor offer some insight
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"It’s not a simple issue that you can set up simple rules for … there’s a complexity in making such decisions," according to former CNN world affairs correspondent Ralph J. Begleiter ’71, a Corporation trustee and currently a professor of journalism and political science at the University of Delaware.
"There’s a well-established tradition that newspapers can exclude ads of their choosing," as they are privately-owned entities, said Beigleter. "An editorial staff should be sensitive to readers, but they must also balance that against a sensitivity to freedom of speech, because that’s not just for newspapers. It’s also for individuals."
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en Hartnett, editor of New Bedford’s daily paper The Standard-Times, agrees it’s important to "be sensitive to community standards and to what’s offensive."But defining offensive, racist or inappropriate material is difficult, Hartnett said, borrowing from a Supreme Court justice’s definition of obscenity. "I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it," he said. "Every situation varies."
The context in which controversial material is presented is crucial, Hartnett noted. Before including sensitive or inflammatory viewpoints in a news story, journalists should "make certain [they’re] central to the story you’re telling," he said. The story, and the comments included from sources, must be balanced, and it should be clear why potentially offensive information has been included "so you don’t shock your readers."
"You don’t want to appear to be endorsing a point of view," said Hartnett. As for advertising, he’s asked only once or twice a year to participate in decisions about the acceptability of ads — and they’re usually political in nature. Again, he argues, a paper should keep its readers clearly in mind.
"You don’t want to run a very sexy ad a mother and her kids are going to see in the morning over their cornflakes," he said. "If an ad is clearly insulting, you run it at your peril."
Begleiter said context and presentation can make a difference when a newspaper decides to run a controversial ad.
"There’s a time when politically and socially sensitive issues come up and editorial [staff] should be involved," he said. "Then it’s a case-by-case decision. You can run a news piece on the story behind the ad [and include] opposing points of view — actually calling attention to the ad and illuminating the issue. You can also run an editorial explaining [your decision] to readers."
That’s the route Frank Graham, editor of the weekly Providence American, said he would take. Graham acknowledged one of the hard realities of journalism, namely that advertising provides the revenue needed to keep a newspaper operating.
"If somebody came to me with that ad and that money, I’d have to consider it," he said. But he’d be willing to run a pro-reparations article to balance the ad, predicting "that would be enough."
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or Marcia Grann O’Brien, editor of the biweekly Narragansett Times, controversy is most often raised in her paper’s Viewpoint and Letters to the Editor section. Although she won’t print anonymous submissions — and she draws the line "when it comes to hate" — unpopular opinions are generally entitled to publication, she said."People have a First Amendment right to express their point of view. Hiding [controversial views] doesn’t protect anybody, because they’re out there anyway," O’Brien said. "There’s another side to the story and, whether you agree with it or not, it deserves to be told."
She’s not involved in decisions on advertising copy for her paper, but O’Brien recalled a time she intervened with the publication of a paid advertisement.
"I knew the information in it wasn’t true, so I went to the publisher — and it was corrected," she said.
Begleiter has found that David Horowitz, author of the controversial ad that ran in the Herald, and others posing highly controversial views repeatedly target student newspapers. Bradley Smith, author of anti-Semitic Holocaust revisionist ads, has admitted he prefers college papers and aims to stir debate on campus and in the media.
"They understand the volatility of student newspapers," Begleiter observed. Although a paper may have rejected the ad last year, student staff turnover gives such writers a chance to make a fresh pitch — perhaps to a staff that will make a different decision. "There’s a vulnerability in this area that’s not generally seen in commercial papers," he said.
Brian Pernicone, editor of URI’s student newspaper, A Good Five Cent Cigar, said his paper wasn’t offered the Horowitz ad, but he believes he and the staff would have decided to run it if it had been submitted. They’ve rejected ads in the past, however, including ones denying the Holocaust and the ill effects of smoking. The difference, Pernicone explained, is that the Holocaust is a factual matter of record, as are the problems associated with smoking, whereas the Horowitz ad offers his perspective on a subject under debate.
"It basically comes down to our feeling about individual ads, but this was opinion and should be taken as such," he said. "There are some worthy points that merit debate, although I don’t necessarily agree with him."