House Editorial: #!@% …and we thought JMU had problems

Posted on September 27, 2007

Last week Colorado State University’s newspaper, Rocky Mountain Collegian, ran a 17-letter editorial dropping the big, fat f-bomb on President Bush. David McSwane, editor-in-chief of The Collegian, printed an editorial in response to an incident involving a college student who was Tasered in Florida at a speech given by John Kerry.

Evidently, President Bush had nothing to do with the incident, so the editorial seemed nonsensical and undeserved. Still, McSwane felt he could stand behind the right of free speech and get off the hook for printing such profanity in the student-run newspaper.

The university’s College Republicans lashed out at the publication after the editorial was printed. The organization initiated a petition that not only demands McSwane’s resignation, but even “urges students to think twice before going to businesses who continue advertising with The Collegian,” according to Chelsea Penoyer, the College Republicans’ chairman, as quoted in an article on CNN.com.

Apparently, the Republicans’ plea worked. Businesses around the college town promptly pulled $30,000 of advertising from the newspaper.

Unfortunately, the newspaper heavily relies on advertising as their sole source of revenue. The newspaper staff is certainly disappointed, as the students on staff had their salaries cut by 10 percent because of the drop in ad sales.

McSwane’s editorial seemed to create a tidal wave in the CSU community. The issue has greatly upset many students, with some saying that what McSwane did overstepped the protection of the First Amendment and some standing up for McSwane voicing his opinion.

No matter what side of the issue CSU students stand, it seems the biggest concern that students have is how the university can sweep up the reputation that McSwane smashed to pieces.

Tuesday McSwane published a follow-up report in The Collegian stating that he has been advised to seek legal counsel as the matter is investigated further by its Board of Student Communication. He denies claims that he is preparing a lawsuit against the university and defends his action as a matter of defending the editorial board’s First Amendment rights, and not a move for financial gain.

McSwane has stuck to his guns about what he printed, and refuses to step down. His reasoning for writing such a brash editorial is that he feels students are apathetic about their rights, particularly their right to free speech. While we admire that kind of courage and the fact that his intentions might have been in the right place, he executed them the wrong way.

McSwane’s editorial not only lacked substance, but integrity that a college publication should always strive for. Sure, The Breeze has come under intense scrutiny at times for its so-called bias coverage of certain events, or its absence of excellent editing skills. We are, after all students. We don’t have degrees in journalism, and some of us aren’t even SMAD majors. We do, however, try our best to act as qualified journalists and present a respectable paper to the JMU community twice a week.

Being a student-run newspaper, we staunchly support the idea and integration of free speech in any college publication. A university’s paper should tastefully apply the sacred First Amendment throughout its pages. There is, however a fine line between tasteful and disgraceful.