Infinite MonkeysMy alma mater is in the news again, and not in a good way. University administrators have stopped a student (and former California gubernatorial candidate) from showing the notorious Nick Berg beheading video on college TV.
Daniel Watts, a junior and an opinion editor at The UCSD Guardian, aired the video two weeks ago on Warren College television, a closed-circuit station available campus-wide. Evidently, he needed approval to broadcast it. Why is not exactly clear—something about a rule barring "indecent" or "patently offensive" content. As Watts explained to the AP, "I wanted to show the media is blowing it out of proportion." Mission accomplished.
The Guardian, the opinion section of which Monkey David and I edited more than a decade ago, published a rather listless editorial on the controversy today. "Watts, who now plans on airing his footage on Student Run Television on May 27, should use the video only as a means to promote open debate among students who choose to view it." As opposed to what another student planned to do with it on the University's Library Walk: "[the] screening was to be a self-proclaimed 'pro-American' event, intended to rally the campus in support of U.S. soldiers in a fit of disgust and thirst for vengeance toward Berg’s murderers. It would have been cheap propaganda, attempting to generalize the conflict in Iraq." Right. Because we wouldn't want to make any distinctions between civilized people and savages, now would we? We wouldn't want to illustrate the difference between the way the United States wages war, and how our enemies treat Americans.
Just out of curiousity, I went back and looked for what the Guardian's editors wrote about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, which turned out to be nothing at all. That's probably just as well.
Posted by Ben at May 27, 2004 03:53 PM | TrackBack