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
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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
