Commentary
Fair And Balanced
Eric Pfieffer Reports. YOU DECIDE.
By Eric Pfeiffer
Between February and April the Oregon Daily Emerald published 38 individual pieces on this year's ASUO elections, yet still failed to provide its readers with balanced and comprehensive coverage. The Emerald's failure was not a direct result of their clear bias toward one side of the political spectrum. And it says nothing about the capacity of those employed by the Emerald. What it does say is that those who guide the coverage of the Emerald are apolitical by nature and chose to impart their own prejudices upon the whole of their readership.
There is a reasonable argument to be made for mainstream corporate news publications that avoid many of the specific details of the political process. A private media corporation is allowed to direct its coverage however it sees fit, so long as it stays within the loose guidelines of the law. Besides, the market provides many alternatives to the mainstream press that do offer detailed insight into an endless assortment of specialized topics. But when your organization includes $140,000 of student incidental fees in its budget, you quite literally owe it to the entire student body to provide a fair examination of the political process. What the readers of the Emerald were instead served with was something far less satisfying.
Consider a few statistics: Out of 32 hard news stories, the Emerald published four which featured candidates or ballot measures in a positive manner. Out of six published editorial pieces, zero were published that took a positive or even neutral stance on the candidates or the democratic process. Fourteen stories covered controversies in the campaign and 12 discussed problems with the democratic process. In contrast, there were zero stories that focused on the various issues the candidates were promoting.
The Emerald criticized the candidates for not being visible enough, yet refused to publish a single article that focused on specific candidates or ballot measure issues.
In a campaign that featured an openly partisan liberal ticket countered by an openly partisan conservative ticket this is both confusing and disturbing. While the future of millions of dollars in student fees and the very direction the student voice would take was up for grabs, no one outside of the direct process could have been informed on the issues at stake if they looked to the Emerald, "the voice of the students," for their information.
The single time the Emerald editorial department solicited opinions for this year's elections, they didn't approach any of the candidates for the ASUO Executive, nor a spokesperson for either of the proposed ballot measures. Instead, the opinions offered on the Emerald's "Perspectives" page were two separate guest columns on why the democratic process was a failure, written by a '98 University alumni and a virtually unknown candidate competing for a seat on the student senate. Contrasting perspectives on the process would have been acceptable. However, two slightly varied mantras on the same subject, one penned by a source with dated insight into the process certainly did little to nothing to impact the war of ideas. The Emerald's commitment to generating negative political stories, as opposed to reporting on actual news, was exemplified in the article "Professors say ASUO Election Lacks Interest" (ODE, 6/13/01). The article makes the argument that the democratic process is not something of interest to the average student because of the failures of student leaders and a failure of the system itself. However, the reporter Hank Hager, and more importantly, the Emerald leadership, failed to provide any balance to a story already conceptualized by the Emerald, an organization that claims to be independent and fair. The facts: the article featured a total of three sources, all of whom expressed negative opinions about the ASUO democratic process. There were no quotes, facts, or even examples offered of a different perspective.
In reality, the Emerald had shown no interest in the democratic process this year until they stepped dangerously close to losing 25 percent of their own student fee subsidy. Almost immediately, the heads of the editorial department lost any sense of professionalism by publishing an anonymous editorial titled "PFC the Cowardly Lion" (ODE, 1/26/01), and a subsequent news story, "The Budgetary Power Elite" (ODE, 1/30/01) that featured mug shots of the Programs Finance Committee in a highly negative context. Without any cohesive message, the editorial managed at least two potentially libelous accusations against the board of students. During their subsequent appeal to the committee, the Emerald regained nearly all of its lost student funding.
For the past three years, voter turnout in the ASUO elections had actually been moving in a positive direction. Four years ago, voter turnout was at around nine percent, nearly identical to the national averages for state universities. Last year, voter turnout numbers peaked at just under twelve percent. Perhaps not the ideal results, it still was about the best you can expect from government facilitated programs: incremental progress. The positive swing can be attributed to four main factors: increased accessibility through new voting options such as the Internet, a budgeted publicity campaign by the ASUO Elections Board, effective and fair coverage by the Emerald, and, of course, controversy in the democratic process.
However, voter turnout returned to nine percent after three of the four stated factors were reversed. First, voter accessibility declined with the closure of voting booths in favor of an all on-line system. The exclusive on-line voting method encountered a number of technical problems, most notably during the first day of the primary elections when the network system crashed in competition with student registration, which had begun on the same day. However, the Elections Board was operating to the best of its ability with an inexperienced staff operating under a highly constrictive time frame. The difficulties faced by this year's Elections Board are subject matter for an independent discussion, but it can be fairly said that the process was hampered by the unexpected obstacles the board faced. However, the third and arguably most damaging factor in decreasing voter turnout was the direction of coverage taken by the editors and reporters at the Emerald. I can speak to this not only from statistical evidence, but from firsthand experience as a former employee of the Emerald. Serving as freelance editor the previous year, I worked in conjunction with former Student Activities editor Jeremy Lang and former Editor in Chief Laura Cadiz to facilitate coverage not only on election controversy, but on how other forces, such as the Elections Board, were working to improve the democratic process. While the actual positive impact of this approach is always up for debate, it can at least be fairly said that the approach did nothing to hurt the democratic process.
It is suggested this year that the Emerald did hurt the democratic process by providing unfocused, unfair and unprofessional coverage in the election process by the statistical ratio of 84 to 16 percent.
After a season of disappointing foreplay and sporadic coverage, the Emerald shot its proverbial load in a climax of journalistic masturbation in the April 25 editorial "May we offer a few suggestions?" - an insult not only to the victors, but to all those involved in the democratic process. It was a full-page dedicated once again not to the issues facing the University's community, but the emotional issues at stake for the actual members of the Emerald editorial department. It's enough to make even the most New Age hypocrite wretch in disgust. If any respected publication were to dabble in such self-serving, tabloid journalism the outcry in the professional community would be great. What it boils down to is the clash between those who feel entitled to vomit their emotional waste in pressed ink with those who balance informed opinions with factual evidence.
Eric Pfeiffer, a former editor and columnist for the Oregon Daily Emerald, is a staff writer for the Oregon Commentator.