The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, April 20, 1999, Page 4, Image 4
EDITOR Erin Gibson OPINION EDITOR Cliff Hicks EDITORIAL BOARD “Nancy Christensen Brad Davis Sam McKewon Jeff Randall Bret Schulte Our VIEW Going bananas Chiquita ruling will affect journalism It’s the bunch of bananas that refuses to rot. The Chiquita Brands International/ Cincinnati Enquirer case rose again last Friday, this time concerning whether or not . former Enquirer reporter Michael Gallagher was allowed to name his source within the Chiquita company when he originally began the story. Gallagher pleaded guilty last September to intercepting more than 2,000 voice mail messages off the private Chiquita voice mail system. The banana headquarters is located about five blocks from the Enquirer in Cincinnati. The Enquirer had to retract all the inves tigative stories concerning Chiquita. The paper also paid the company $10 million. Gallagher was fired and now faces possible time in prison for his crime. But Friday’s ruling had little to do with that. No, on Friday, Judge Ann Marie Tierney ruled that when Gallagher named his confi dential source for the Chiquita stories (former Chiquita counsel George Ventura), Ventura had no recourse to pursue. In other words, even though Ventura spoke to Gallagher under the guise of confi dentiality, he was not protected by the state of Ohio’s shield law. Why? Because Gallagher voluntarily gave up the source in court last week. He was hot coerced to do soTHe gave the name up. And, although it’s unlikely, Chiquita could now sue Ventura for giving up company secrets. auch a ruling has a couple ol enects. One, confidential sources who know about the rul ing would be less likely to talk. Look what could happen to them if journalists get in trouble. If any of the Washington, D.C., jour nalists turn out like Gallagher, half of the gov ernment could be in trouble. On the flip side, it is protection for the reporter, who doesn’t have to twist in the wind with some unidentified source who can’t be touched. In a sense, that protects the reporter from being fed lies by a reckless interviewee. The ruling might also curb some of the out-of-control quoting of anonymous sources within publications today. In major news magazines that cover politicians, confiden tiality is almost the norm. While it may titil late the reader with scandals on Capitol Hill, it hurts accountability. And the journalists who often quote anonymous sources in those magazines'are some of the nation’s finest writers. The Gallagher case and recent ruling will be relatively ignored by most newspapers and magazines. But the Daily Nebraskan recog nizes such issues and cases for what they are: another complicating matter in the ever changing industry we call modem journal ism. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Spring 1999 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of its author. The Board of Regents serves as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production the regents, responsibility forthe editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. letter Policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guarantee their publication. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major and/or group affiliation, if any. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, NE. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@unlinfo.unl.edu. Brookins’ VIEW ' DN LETTERS Binge-bonge It really saddens me to see our campus buying into the media-creat ed problem that is “binge drinking.” Did you know more people die each year from ping-pong related accidents than from binge drinking? In response to the article connect ing binge drinking to sexual assault, let’s do a little number crunching from the statistics presented in the article. First, there were 77 reported sexu al assaults last year. Now, assuming (generously) that only 1 in 3 sexual assaults are reported, let’s say 231 actually happened last year. In 73 per cent of the cases, you have the aggres sor drinking, not binge drinking, just drinking. So, you have 169 cases last year where the aggressor was drink ing, which boils down to 3.25 per week. Now for some figures of my own. How many people would you say drink on an average weekend? If you look at O Street on a good Saturday, I’d easily say you’d see 5,000 or 6,000 people there, plus the people at parties. So, let’s assume 20,000 people in Lincoln drink each week (probably more). So, maybe 1/100th of 1 per cent of the people that drink each week are involved in a sexual assault, according to their statistics. uoesn t sound so Dig ana scary to drink a little bit, does it? Maybe instead of blaming alcohol, we should blame the sexual perdition that is stamped into our youth from the time they first start watching television? Maybe we could blame the irresponsi ble attitude towards sex that the media and culture in general have adopted? And as for binge drinking, it sounds to me like the media is looking for a nice problem to run long stories on to take up space from what’s really going on in this world. I can think of much better things to do with $700,000. Eric Rost sophomore mechanical engineering The bad fight I hope several people respond to “The Good Fight,” written by Jessica Flanagain (4/15). A few weeks ago she was talking nonsense about how households run by homosexuals will create nothing but juvenile delin quents. Thursday, she made herself out to be a bigot by saying the liberal way our country has been run has turned out “a culture of victimhood.” In the next paragraph, she says that “... Christians are unnecessarily frus trated and our (nationalized) political climate is unnecessarily ungodly....” Doesn’t that quote fall under the same victimhood? She also writes, the liberal idea that individuals need not be socially responsible has permeated every aspect of our society.” Isn’t going to church and praying for forgiveness another way of loading your problems off on someone else (in this case, Jesus)? Ms. Flanagain, don’t you think in the same way you believe the conser vative Christian way of life is best for everyone, homosexuals believe equal rights for them is the best way for everyone? If you want to try to oppress peo ple by preaching fear and hatred masked as the word of God, there are plenty of Small-Town Americas for you to live your conservative lifestyle. If you want to embrace the differences in people and ensure that everyone has equal rights, you can accept that the variety of cultures in our cities will not want to live by your conserv ative ideas, which will make your life better but not necessarily better any one else’s. ino matter wnat the law says, his tory tells us there will always be homosexuals living together, women getting abortions, violence in the streets, pornography, profanity and people misusing die welfare system. If the Christians tried to stick their noses into everyone’s lives during the time of the Roman Empire, it is very easy to see why they were fed to the lions. If everyone would just help out their fellow man and stop meddling in other people’s business, this country would be a much better place for all of us to live. Open your eyes, and live and let live. Shad Burns senior architectural studies/ interior design Fight overlap We are disappointed that with the recent defeat of LB480, the women’s health care initiative, opponents have tried to misrepresent the bill’s purpose and convolute the function of the ini tiative. Rather thafr creating more bureaucracy, the initiative’s purpose is to make current programs more effi cient. Although opponents suggest the bill will result in the duplication of services, in actuality it will help detect and eliminate the overlap of services that currently exist. Women make over 75 percent of health-care decisions in a family and make up over half the population of the state, yet women’s health care has not been a priority. The educational approach of the bill strives to make women bet ter advocates for their own and their family’s health care. Please contact your legislator and demand that women’s health care become a priori ty in the state of Nebraska. Tell them you expect their support of LB480. Trevor Towne , April Schueths-MIller Kerry Beldin Melissa Davis Schmit UNO MattHaney/DN