Michelle Malkin has the scoop on a story almost laughable in its irony:
Two editors at the University of Illinois student-run newspaper were suspended Tuesday for their decision to run a series of cartoons that have sparked outrage and violence around the Islamic world.That is the version of the story on Malkin's (excellent) blog. However, the Chicago Tribune story to which she links was updated with publisher Mary Cory's statements:
Editor-in-chief Acton H. Gorton said the Daily Illini's publisher suspended him and the newspaper's opinions sections editor, Charles Prochaska, for two weeks pending the outcome of an internal investigation. "I'm very disappointed. I think this is nothing more than a cover-up," Gorton said.
Daily Illini managing editor Shira Weissman would not comment on the situation Tuesday. A telephone message left with the newspaper's publisher, Mary Cory, was not immediately returned. The paper's editorial staff told readers in Monday's editions that the decision to run the cartoons was made by Gorton and Prochaska without their knowledge.
While the staff apologized to the Muslim community, it stopped short of saying it disagreed with the decision. "We want to make it clear that while we do not necessarily disagree with the decision to print these cartoons, we disagree with how they were run," the editorial reads.
According to the editorial, Gorton and Prochaska ran the cartoons without consulting the staff or the publisher and "behind the backs of those who are being significantly affected by its fallout."
Gorton and Prochaska ran their own editorial Monday, defending their decision to reprint the cartoons, and even called "irresponsible" the decision by major newspapers around the country not to publish the cartoons. Gorton said on Tuesday that other editors were in the same room when the cartoons were laid out on the newspaper's pages and did not object. He also said he continues to stand by the decision to publish the cartoons.
The editor in chief of a student-led newspaper serving the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been suspended for printing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that, when published in Europe, enraged Muslims and led to violent protests in the Middle East and Asia.Some comments here:
Editor Acton Gorton and his opinions editor, Chuck Prochaska, were relieved of their duties at The Daily Illini on Tuesday while a task force investigates "the internal decision-making and communication" that led to the publishing of the cartoons, according to a statement by the newspaper's publisher and general manager, Mary Cory.
Gorton said he expects to be fired at the conclusion of the investigation, which is expected to take two weeks.
"I pretty much have an idea how this is going to run, and this is a thinly veiled attempt to remove me from my position," said Gorton, a U. of I. senior who took the newspaper's helm Jan. 1. "I am feeling very betrayed, and I feel like the people who I thought were my friends and supporters didn't back me up."
Nearly every major U.S. newspaper, including the Chicago Tribune, has not published the cartoons. They were first published in late September by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and reprinted in other European publications in recent weeks. The cartoons portray the prophet as a terrorist, including one that depicts Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb and another showing him turning away suicide bombers from paradise because, he says, heaven ran out of virgins to be given to martyrs.
Gorton, 25, said he believes he made a sound journalistic decision in running six of the cartoons because the public has a right to judge their content. He said he consulted with top staff members and journalism instructors before making the decision to publish them in Thursday's newspaper.
1. The original version of events as portrayed on Malkin's (excellent) blog actually makes the university look better, in my opinion, than the updated version does with the publisher's statements. Judging by the often hilarious performance of the student-run newspaper, the Lantern, when I attended Ohio State, journalism students will do stupid things at college newspapers, particularly in in terms of procedure. This is a controversial story, and I can very easily see a journalism major running these cartoons without going through the proper channels on the logic of "better to say 'sorry' later than be told 'no' now."
2. That said, the proof is in the pudding. They published these cartoons and now they are in trouble with the PC police for it, which to me is unacceptable. Gorton thinks the outcome of the investigation has been pre-ordained, and he's probably right.
3. Now for the delicious irony: Odd that we are being told these caricatures of Muhammad are "offensive" by the same people who brought us Chief Illiniwek, the university mascot that has often been criticized by guilty white liberals ... er, Indian ... um, Native American groups -- yeah, that's it, that's the ticket -- as "offensive" for reasons they cannot quite explain. Not having read the Daily Illini, I can't say for sure, but I would imagine most of the journalism majors at the paper are leftists who want Chief Illiniwek pulled because he's "offensive" and/or "racist." I would imagine that the university itself wants to pull the mascot, but angry alumni (justifiably) will not allow it.
Don't get me wrong here. I support Chief Illiniwek and think the NCAA's campaign against such logos is reason enough for NCAA chief Myles Brand (whose hiring in the first place was monumental stupidity of Great Pyramid proportions) to be fired. But a little consistency here would be nice, not that you could expect that from the practitioners of PC.
UPDATE -- In the comments, TheSquire pointed out to me that the Daily Illini was an independent newspaper not affiliated with the University of Illinois. I pooh-poohed that a bit, because most college newspapers are described that way even if they are projects of the journalism school. However, Eugene Volokh points out that there may be more truth to that claim here than in most other cases:
The Daily Illini is an independent nonprofit in which the ultimate decisionmaking authority is in the hands of the publisher and an eight-member board, which consists of four students and four faculty members.I'm not sure that I completely agree with Volokh's analysis here. My quibble here is not any constitutional issue -- there is none -- but in the newspaper's connection to the university. Arguing against such an affiliation is the fact that the newspaper is a corporation separate from the university with an independent board of directors. It also appears to operate from an off-campus location (though I can't ascertain that as I do not have the familiarity with the UIUC campus that I do with, say, tOSU, IU and Purdue, and as we Ohio State fans found out much to our regret, just being off-campus does not mean something is not connedcted to the university).
I'm pretty sure there's no constitutional problem here; the board of directors of a nonprofit publication is entitled to ultimately control what the publication publishes, and to control who gets to make the daily decisions about such matters. That some of the board of directors members are faculty at a public university doesn't change the matter; I don't believe they're acting in their official capacity, and, even if they were speaking for the university so that the newspaper were a university-controlled organ, the university would generally be entitled to dictate what is published in the media that it controls. (A public university is not entitled to dictate what is published in privately owned student newspapers; but here either the newspaper is private and controlled by a board of directors acting in its private capacity, or [less likely] it would be seen as being controlled by faculty members acting as public officials, in which case it's no longer really quite private.)
On the other hand, there are 4 faculty members (from the school of journalism, I would guess) from UIUC on the board. Presumably they are chosen because they are UIUC faculty. As board members, they have certain control ofver the newspaper. The Daily Illini also uses the name of the university on its masthead, which typically requires some sort of permission (many of the Ohio State fan sites I visit carry disclaimers that they are not affiliated with tOSU).
In any event, I still believe there is an affiliation here between the Daily Illini and UIUC, but the connection is at best far more attenuated than I had first thought.
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