Is your name more than a byline but a tacit approval of the entire contents of the publication you are writing in?

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So it's 4:30 AM and I am awake. I am up because I was kicked out of my bed - the bed I share with my fiancée - because of an argument that started earlier in the evening and seethed and simmered until it boiled over out of control until I was shown the door and the couch.

What led me to this state? An article in the newspaper whose Arts & Entertainment section I (attempt to) edit.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the article that got me into hot water (and out of a warm bed).

For the record, I consider that article repugnant in every sense. It demeans women, it demeans men, it demeans college students and, well, there's not a hell of a lot that it doesn't demean.

My fiancée, whom I almost always agree with in matters social, political and everything else, feels that the fact that I edit the stories in the Arts & Entertainment section and sometimes contribute my own stories about local Arts & Entertainment means that I am "associated with" those words which is (I believe her point) tacit approval of them.

The reason I am on the couch (well, on the computer) is because I disagree with this. Maybe I am myopic - or maybe, as my fiancée pointedly pointed out, I don't want to give up the money - but I do not feel any relationship with the writer I never met whose words I never saw until I read them on the newspaper. I deal with music and theater and movies and art. I am on the masthead as the Arts & Entertainment Editor, not "the guy who agrees with everything in this newspaper." I didn’t blame the janitor at WFAN when Imus got all shock jock on the Rutgers female basketballers, I don’t blame every commentator on any cable news station you could name because I think the person who goes on before or after is a twit and I don’t think that I ever once blamed any of the NY Post sportswriters for the idiocy that the newspaper would spout in areas not occupying the back page.

I didn't even read the article in question until a writer of mine sent me an email complaining about it. But even though that writer emailed me just to make sure his words reached the correct people and going on the record as being "ashamed to have my name associated with it" his email was NOT a resignation notice, merely a complaint.

I am expected, according to my otherwise quite rational fiancée, to resign my post in protect because that article - and everything else in the newspaper, apparently - reflects on me because my name is in there and because I get checks from that publication.

I appeal to the folks here since many of you write for weekly newspapers, daily newspapers and magazines whose scope is not only entertainment - How should I handle this? How would you? If I am lambasted here, I will rethink my position – should I?

― NYCNative, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 08:55 (eighteen years ago)

I'd contact your direct boss and / or the guy who you know would have commissioned that piece, and I'd complain. Kick up a moral shitstorm; say you don't want to be associated with stuff like that and you'd hope that anyone and everyone else you work with and for wouldn't want to be associated with it either. Canvas your writers beforehand for their opinion - it's likely that more than the one who emailed you are bothered by it.

Resigning is a big step and not necessary or practical, I'd say. Better to try and influence the editorial policy of the paper to not run schlock like that again. By all means a sexual-health-awareness piece can be shocking but that's insulting and nasty as well, unnecessarily so.

But as long as your section is OK, as long as you keep it how you want it and that avoids material like that, I don't see how anyone, be they a reader or your fiance or your mother, ought to think you should resign over someone else commisioning some nastiness in another section of the same pages.

― Scik Mouthy, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 10:43 (eighteen years ago)

she'll calm down. have a proper discussion about it with her tomorrow. stand your ground though, in the end she'll respect your position more if you dont tumble to the ground and acquiesce for an easy life

― 600, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 10:47 (eighteen years ago)

Having a look that's a student paper, right? The schlocky nature of the piece makes more sense now, but it's still not acceptable.

― Scik Mouthy, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 10:55 (eighteen years ago)

I'm amazed that some of the people commenting found this funny. I thought comedy was supposed to be hard. It's most offensive to people dedicated to the art of writing comedy.

So this article wasn't in your section? I assume you edit everything in your section, and the answer is no. Well, you can't really be held responsible for things your paper publishes that you never read. On the other hand, over time people will begin to associate you with the kinds of things the paper publishes.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 11:58 (eighteen years ago)

college newspapers have always been full of these kinda attn-getting stunts. sophomoric in a word. wouldn't sweat it if I were you.

― m coleman, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 12:33 (eighteen years ago)

Is your name more than a byline but a tacit approval of the entire contents of the publication you are writing in?

have you ever read "the dead"?

― pretzel walrus, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 13:43 (eighteen years ago)

it's not your fault this was published; I don't think its intent is evil or anything, dude is trying for "brutally honest" and fails miserably but if it helps any college girls or boys go "oh snap maybe I should start using condoms" then okay then

you could always do the double switch -- complain to yr boss and tell yr fiance that you've told them that you will be out if stuff like this EVER HAPPENS AGAIN

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:02 (eighteen years ago)

Or if all else fails and the paper's policy allows it, use a pseudonym.

― blunt, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:19 (eighteen years ago)

Being that his actions had influence on matters of immense import, George Tenet should have resigned once he realized, according to his telling, that Mr. Bush ignored his warnings.

But you, NYCnative, make a living in an enterprise (I presume) where anything published under that banner cannot have consequences rising to any serious standard. You had nothing to do with this piece, nor did you have anything to do with any number of pieces that yr GF may find abominable (again, I can only presume this).

What does she do for a living? Is she supposed to answer for everything perpetrated by her bosses/company?

― Veronica Moser, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 14:42 (eighteen years ago)

I think there's a difference between writing for a catch-all newspaper, and writing for something whose purpose or thesis is inherently disgusting. Like, if that paper suddenly decided that they were switching over to a neo-Nazi newsletter, and you continued writing for them, THAT would be tacit approval of its contents. Otherwise, you are as responsible for that article as I am when the local newspaper I write for puts My Chemical Romance on the cover or whatever.

― Jeff Treppel, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)

is this a David Mamet play?

― Ronan, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 18:10 (eighteen years ago)

Is David Mamet to be held responsible for everything that crazy fucker David Mamet writes?

― M.V., Tuesday, 8 May 2007 19:39 (eighteen years ago)

you should tell her "lol irony". the guy is trying to be that right?

― That one guy that quit, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

He's trying to do... Something... Whatever he tried to do, he failed and I really have problems with the newspaper I edit having words such as "cumbucket" in it on many levels.

The girlfriend did apologize to me when her sister told her that she was making me sleep on the couch because of a principle, something a tad over the top even by the standards of a NARAL/WOW/Planned Parenthood-card-carrying self-identified feminist.

I sent an email to the publishers and managing editor with the email from my writer as well as my own opinion. I also sent an email to my staff encouraging them to do the same if they felt that these kinds of stories made the newspaper and by extension them as well look bad.

Other than that I think I am done.

When in the heat of battle last night, the GF asked me if I would edit the arts section for Arooyan Monthly (Google-proofed as a courtesy) however the difference to me is that the agenda of that kind of publication would be vastly different than the agenda that UWeekly has. I equated it to how I didn't feel that everyone else at WFAN and MSNBC were not responsible for Imus' words, nor did I think that people had to quit their jobs because of his stance especially had he not been disciplined as he was.

I also told her I was posting this and she said she can offset the opinions of writers with the opinions of women - in other words, you guys (and I) are biased.

All that said, I do want to stress that we made up and have agreed to let semantic differences lie when we she is keenly aware that I in no way endorse that article or anything it stands for. We still don't see eye to eye about how I should deal with that non-endorsement but we'll just agree to disagree about that.

― NYCNative, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

does she expect you to agree with every editorial they run too?

― s1ocki, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 22:24 (eighteen years ago)

No but she does expect me to not want to be involved on any level if I can help it with views as extreme as this, especially when they encroach upon her views as a feminist.

― NYCNative, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 22:32 (eighteen years ago)

She should understand if college papers didn't run stupid bullshit like this then we would just call them "papers."

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 23:13 (eighteen years ago)

Also is the OFFICIAL college paper that's been on campus for 75 years or the wacky competing one that every town has? This one seems full of "Bar Starz." If it's not the real one, use this as a opportunity to defect. Or, if you're a senior, use it as an opportunity to go on an a long internship!

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 23:16 (eighteen years ago)

You don't think I'm a college student, do you?

Shit.

― NYCNative, Tuesday, 8 May 2007 23:51 (eighteen years ago)

she said she can offset the opinions of writers with the opinions of women

This mystifies me. For what it's worth, my NARAL/WOW/Planned Parenthood-card-carrying self-identified feminist GF thinks this article is disgusting, but feels that you've done the right thing here.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 00:04 (eighteen years ago)

One of my writers - not a college student but an established writer who I recruited when another local weekly had a regime change last year - just resigned over the article. This is the letter she sent me:

Hi Brian,

I just read Mike Wells’ controversy-laden article (I think it’s been taken down from the site, but a good old-fashioned Google search still pulls it up). I am, like everyone else, absolutely horrified, not only by the reasoning but also the middle-school level prose. How anyone remotely tied to journalistic ethics and publishing strategy thought this acceptable is beyond me. And I’m only a writer; I can’t imagine how you, as an editor, must feel.

But as a writer, I do have more leeway to come and go, and, unfortunately, I think it’s time for me to go.

I’ll save you the SUPER long-winded diatribe, since I’m sure you and I share the same feelings about this piece, but I operate on principle often to a fault. There are things that feel right and things that feel wrong, it’s very black and white with me, and being associated with this just feels wrong. I wish there were a way for the A&E section to work independently of the rest of the paper — or, rather, for readers to KNOW that we do — but it isn’t that way. And I wish this were the only thing that worried me about Uweekly, but it isn’t. After so many people questioned my writing for a “racist, homophobic” paper, I went through and read some non-A&E pieces. I’ve spent most of this morning mostly shocked by the sheer, offensive stupidity of what I’m reading. And this is coming from a girl who finds almost NOTHING offensive. Seriously.

And I think it’s important that you stay put as an editor and try to fix the paper as much as you can. Make journalistic integrity and talent an imperative, set the bar higher than the sort of college humor that chuckles at date rape. There’s hope for it in the articles, both A&E and non-A&E, that make an effort to inform and entertain in a professional, studied way. I’ve loved working with you, and I hate to cut the cord of the relationship, but I just have to. I’m sorry.

Thanks for everything, Brian. Especially for taking me in after the Alive’s Great Exodus. I left the Alive for a similar moral principle; the same rules have to apply here. I’d rather be terminally out of work than considered a hypocrite.

And hey, if you ever find yourself editing another paper, don’t hesitate to give me a call. I hope my leaving doesn’t force you to think less of me in any way.

Of course I don't think any less of her.

― NYCNative, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 16:43 (eighteen years ago)

More news: This week's paper featured another ill-timed, badly written and utterly pointless article by the same writer. This one mentions attaining weaponry for revenge only a few weeks after we had the Virginia Tech tragedy on our cover.

Linky

The controversy from the previous article was apparently too slow to come to force a look at things for this week's issue.

I emailed the News Editor and I think he is feeling heat. We are having a meeting at 4 today. This will be a part of the discussions.

The publisher responded to my writer quitting with the following:

Brian:

Part of our meeting today is my addressing some of these content issues. I too am VERY disappointed with that particular column. As of today, that column will no longer appear in our paper or website. I have even deleted the offending column from the website permanently. Could you give me [the quitting writer's] phone # as I would like to talk with her personally and see if I can assuage her concerns. I feel she will be an important content creator going forward --especially with your coming absence.

That "absence" is me leaving town which has nothing to do with this mess but likely is involving me stepping down from my position (I asked them if I could stay on but they very well might want a local editor).

― NYCNative, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 17:31 (eighteen years ago)

I love the comments on both those articles that basically amount to "lol, wtf guyz, don't take it serious".

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

it sounds like the paper's leadership is taking it pretty seriously. if not, i would leave unless i had kids to feed.

― lfam, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:49 (eighteen years ago)

Man, hate the term "content creator".

― Mark Rich@rdson, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:54 (eighteen years ago)

i mean, this guy isn't funny at all. not even dane cook and carlos mencia fans would find this funny. and he's advocating surreptitiously infecting people with HIV? that is completely unjustifiable for such an irony-challenged writer. really, most college papers suffer prolix, flowery prose, or editing mistakes, or circle-jerk articles about the writer's friends' band. not this shit. even that lyndon collins fellow who wrote about how much he hates slow gas pumps is better than this.

― lfam, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:58 (eighteen years ago)

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