Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Be cautious about ads

The link takes you to a Student Press Law Center story about Holocaust deniers who try to buy space in college newspapers to spread the theory that the Holocaust never happened. Believe it or not, The Doane Owl once published an ad of Holocaust denier Bradley Smith on the grounds that the paper was providing him his right to free speech and that the issue needed to be explored more fully. But this is an extremely sensitive topic and, in point of fact, the Owl did not have to print the ad or grant Smith his First Amendment rights. He has a right to speak. The newspaper has a right to deny ads that he wishes to run in the paper.

The president of the college, at the time, was Fred Brown. He did not censor the publication, but he asked to talk to the editors of the paper after the Holocaust ad ran. He told them a chilling tale of a friend of his whose concentration camp number was tattoed on her arm. That, plus the preponderance of evidence that the Holocaust existed, was enough to convince, who is a history expert - in fact, owns a doctorate in history, Brown that it did happen. And that the Owl was wrong for printing the ad.

After they heard Brown's story, I think the students wished they would have pulled the ad and found a 20-inch wire story to put in its place.

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