Re The Crimson & the Holocaust (or not)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/09/massachusetts.harvard.holocaust/index.html


Far worse than the ad itself was the confusing and disingenuous response by the Crimson to enraged readers. Sloppily thrown together with a heavy dose of desperation, the attempt at damage control only weakened appearance of competence and moral authority that the paper was trying to maintain.

President Maxwell L. Child's claim that a previously rejected ad innocently "fell through the cracks" is an abdication of responsibility for his paper and his staff. It is difficult to believe that proofing practices at "the nation's oldest continuously published daily college newspaper" are so poor that none of its "strong body of undergraduate staff volunteers" caught the error. (http://www.thecrimson.com/info/about.aspx) But if that is indeed the case, well, shucks. I've seen high schoolers and a gravely ill cancer patient work more attentively in a newsroom, and I would've expected even better from an Ivy League staff. (Especially one that fusses frequently over the unsophisticated "faux-students" of HES; http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528709)

More puzzling is Mr. Child's equivocating mea culpa. While he states that the Crimson had no intention of running the ad since receiving it in July, Mr. Child goes on to assure readers "that the rest of the ad's planned run has been terminated..." (emphasis added)(http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528828)

Holocaust denier Bradley R. Smith, who submitted and paid for the ad, claims he made a deal with the Crimson in July, and was never told of any plan to pull the ad. As of 9/9, he said, his money had not been refunded. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/09/massachusetts.harvard.holocaust/index.html)

Given the messy circumstances created by the Crimson for its readers and would-be advertiser, Mr. Child's account appears less than entirely accurate--but who is tasked with keeping a reporter honest? The incident reveals a sloppy news operation of questionable integrity, which sadly, is the norm these days. (http://people-press.org/report/543/)

Rather than respond to the uproar with a clear and impartial assertion of its press freedom, the Crimson adopted a bizarrely moralistic tone. It condemned the ad as "wrong," and a promotion of "hate" that "could actually jeopardize the psychological and emotional well being" of the descendants of Holocaust survivors. Out of concern for public health, the Crimson urged other college newspapers against publishing similar ads, and even threw in a word about defamation, for some reason. (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528840)

Um, thanks? But next time, guys, save the sermon for Sunday; it's the Crimson's ad policy and execution that truly needs help.