Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.misc,net.motss Subject: Corrupting youth: Conservative [sic.] Campus Tabloids Message-ID: <1039@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Wed, 17-Oct-84 19:42:38 EDT Article-I.D.: bbncca.1039 Posted: Wed Oct 17 19:42:38 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Oct-84 01:00:48 EDT Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 115 [Information taken from the 10/16/84 BOSTON PHOENIX article, "Hawking Papers" by Peter Canellos, pp. 10-11, 34,36,38.] The last 5 years has seen the rise of "independent" "conservative" campus "newspapers" on 60 campuses nationwide, liberally [sic.] funded by the Institute for Educational Affairs (IEA), a New Right organization, to the tune of $1800-10,000 per paper to startup, con- trasted with the $1000 or less that other publications receive from tight student-activities monies. The rightwing rags also receive valuable services FREE from the IEA and the Washington Leadership Institute, another New Right group: reprints of national press articles & cartoons; exclusive interviews with prominent figures; training in legal matters (how to incorporate, nonprofit status), fundraising, & tactics for battling school administrations. But the truth is these publications are neither: 1) Independent: they must apply to the IEA by submitting a detailed grant proposal, budget proposal, statement of purpose, writing samples, evidence of faculty support. The nonprofit IEA refuses to fund "liberal papers". The edge the 60 rags enjoy is entirely due to IEA funds, es- pecially considering the troubles these papers deliber- artely create (see below); the threat of withdrawal of IEA $$ is tantamount to monitoring & censorship, even though once an application is granted, all the IEA does is provide free services. Nor are the papers 2) Conservative: but rather far-right, paranoid & rabid like much of the New Right, or what a Victorian would call "reactionary". They wouldn't recognize a genuine conservative even if Edmund Burke appeared to them in a vision. And they're not 3) Newspapers, but "tabloids", whose routine use of a bat- tery of racial, ethnic, & sexual slurs, innuendoes, and coarse baiting tactics would make even a Wliiam Randolph Hearst or Rupert Murdoch indignant. They inject new and virulent life into the phrase "yellow-sheet journalism". (Maybe some of the more offensive people on the net have been weaned at this abbatoir of journalism?) I'm seeking information, anecdotes, relevant law from netters who have a knowledge of: 1) Statutary law & pending legislation regarding public & private school funding, student activities, & poli- tical interest groups. Are there grounds for lawsuits against such outside, invidious, & vested funding? Is a class action suit possible against all 60 rags at once? 2) Typical university rules & regulations impinging on these issues. 3) Any campus tabloids; also, student & alumni campaigns against them. Personal experiences? To illustrate the character of this new tabloid press, here's a brief history of the Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH) paper, the DARTMOUTH REVIEW, the first paper funded by the IEA, in 1980, under the wing of New Right Dartmouth professor Jeffrey Hart. Hart secured Jack Kemp, William Rusher (publisher of NATIONAL REVIEW), & R. Emmett Tyrrell (founder of AMERICAN SPECTATOR) for the advisory board. The REVIEW then proceeded to: 1) Reinstate Dartmouth's banned logo, a grinning caricature of an Indian (mere fun & games, you say, because Indians don't count? Look at what followed:) 2) Publish "Dis ain't no jive, bro", an article written in "black jive" criticizing minority recruitment; it "suggested that Dart- mouth was admitting blacks who were shiftless, hostile to whites, & unable to do college work" (Canellos in PHOENIX, p. 34) 3) Publish "Grin & Beirut" which ridiculed Dartmouth's recognition of Jewish holidays. It "likened a religious hut erected for the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkoth to 'a settlement on the West Bank of College Hall'. When anti-Semitic vandals destroyed the Sukkah hut on the night of the day the article was published, the college rabbi blamed the Review for inciting the destruc- tion." (p. 34) 4) Publish an article "listing the names and describing the exper- iences of students attending a confidential meeting of the Gay Students Association." (p. 34) The REVIEW reporter, who posed as a lesbian, also taperecorded parts of the meeting. Protests (of "violation of felony wiretapping & misdemeanor privacy laws" (p. 34)) were made to the NH attorney general's office, which recently announced it wouldn't prosecute the reporter. The current governor, John Sununu, on leave from the Mechanical Engineering Dept. of Tufts University (Medford, MA), is a New Right ideologue. A black Dartmouth administrator was so incited by the REVIEW that he phy- sically assaulted one of its editors, & ended losing his job. Many of the other tabloids used the same tactics when they first began; although some have moderated their behavior once established, often they merely encase the same rabid views & bigotries in "pompous verbiage". For example, the Harvard paper, the SALIENT, attacked the Law School "for allegedly having less strenous guidelines for black professors" (p. 36). In eastern Massachusetts, some of the other yellow sheets are: Harvard Salient Primary Source (Tufts) Observer (Boston College) For a detailed report, see Peter Cannelos' piece in this week's BOSTON PHOENIX. Cheers, Ron Rizzo