I am sitting in the fourth seat of a commuter van in Accra, Ghana, where I have fallen into a half conscious stupor.  My silver dress shirt is caked with sweat and my khaki slacks covered in dirt and mud from the cascades of  torrential rain that occurred earlier. My neck and head lie loose, my eyes open just enough to witness the blur of faces wash by the window.  As the van dashes down the shoulder and navigates hawkers, animals, shacks and great massive mounds of dirt, my body becomes synchronous with its motion.  Each jerk of the vehicle causes my head to undulate and sway.

This is how I have I have spent the end of each day during the last week while conducting a reporting internship with the Accra Daily Mail.  It has been, to say the least, quite an adjustment from reporting in the U.S.  The heat is brutal, the rain bludgeoning and the administrative factions of government generally unresponsive to media query. But, what it lacks in creature comforts, it makes up for with novelty.  I am a journalist in Africa.  What could be more lovely than that?  It is a sweet, languorous existence, and I feel fortunate to be able to temporarily trade it for the hectic nature of writing in the West.

However, I must confess that I am somewhat leading a double life.

My column on political diversity printed in the Christian Science Monitor has initiated a firestorm of commentary, traffic and media requests.  I was on Lou Dobb’s radio show yesterday and FOX News is one of the many news outlets plastered through my in-box.  I have received approximately 300 emails–my address isn‘t even on the column–and most of them have contained effusive support . My blog is filled with new comments and subscribers and I have dozens upon dozens of Facebook friend requests. Suddenly, editors are writing  me instead of me desperately querying them.

It’s a bizarre and frenetic moment.  I guess this goes with the territory, but the deluge of publicity and praise feels burdensome from West Africa.  I just don’t have much motivation to Twitter here.  I don’t have much of a desire to speak with Bill O’Reilly either, although the concept of  bloviating with him from afar does appeal a bit to my inner ego.

In fact, I am a bit stressed over the whole scenario. One moment I’m in downtown Accra wading through chaos of the bus station and two hours later I’m beamed back across the ocean via cell phone to speak to Lou Dobbs. I’ve considered hiring a black magic priest to tranquilize my email inbox or possibly conduct a ritual sacrifice of my laptop to the gods.

Regardless of my mild discontent at all this attention, there’s no better feeling than having your work appreciated by so many people and knowing that it made a difference.  The lack of political diversity on college campuses is a big problem and I hope my column has incited some dialogue and opened some eyes.  The feedback I have received has been impressively sharp.  Much of it has been from those who have had similar experiences as students in the past.

I am a bit relieved, though, that I have the bulk of this continent to shield me from the media crush.  Everyone seems to want a piece of me at the moment, while all I want to do is disappear into the thrashing chaos of Accra.

Salzburg, Austria– Catching my eye in Monday’s New York Times was a pair of columns from Paul Krugman and Ross Douthat. Krugman, the liberal Nobel Prize economist, and Douthat, the 29 year-old conservative hired to fill the shoes of Bill Kristol, both addressed the health care legislation recently proposed to Congress.

The bill in question, a sprawling 895 page piece of legislation, would provide healthcare for 95% of Americans, according to Democrats.  It would also create a public health plan that would allow Americans to purchase health insurance from the government regardless of pre-existing conditions.  This public option, which is fiercely opposed by Congressional Republicans, was the focus of a robust  NYT/CBS public opinion poll released on Sunday.  Its results were ignored by Douthat in his analysis, while they were used as a building block for Krugman’s column.  The stylistic differences between the two pieces make it easy to see why Krugman’s work is consistently more polished then that of his colleague.

Ross Douthat

The meat of Douthat’s problem is that he’s not really sure if he wants to write about healthcare at all.  He begins by addressing the process of government itself.  “There was one small consolation for Republicans amid last November’s shellacking. For at least four years, their opponents would enjoy the dubious pleasure of trying to govern the United States of America,” he says.

A paragraph later he states that in a hypothetical world without political constraints “conservatives would encourage people to self-ration, by putting a certain number of health care dollars directly in their hands and leaving the rest to market forces.” However, this vision collides with the desires of those within the Republican Party.

In the NYT/CBS poll, half of Republicans supported a public plan, in addition to three-fourths of Independents and 9 out of 10 Democrats, making Douthat’s vision of cohesiveness amongst his cohorts fiction.  Of course, it’s possible his “conservatives” may just be a reference to the Republican leadership, which then by Douthat’s admission is completely out of touch with what its party wants.

And how do Americans rate the GOP’s plans for healthcare reform?  Eighteen percent of those surveyed said the Republicans are more likely to better healthcare, while 57 percent said Democrats would usher in more helpful reform.  In fact, even a quarter of Republicans said Democrats had a better vision for healthcare.  And yet, instead of addressing this schism, or putting forth a few basic reasons why a “market-based” system of healthcare would work, Douthat spends his time trolling about in the  muck of hypothetical and pelting the reader with his musings about how the Democrats will soon realize that governing is much harder than they thought.

Paul Krugman

In Krugman’s column, he cites the poll off the bat, saying,  “If surveys like the New York Times/CBS News poll released last weekend are any indication, voters are ready for major change.”  It gives his argument–that centrist Democrats must refrain from railing against a public option and obfuscating reform–a punch that sustains it throughout the piece.  Krugman’s read is that it is not Republicans (who on healthcare, seem to be uniformly saying nothing more than no) but Democrats that are the greatest danger to reform.  It  is a provocative and seemingly accurate conclusion.  But, it’s not an idea that’s simply reliant upon his observations.

Krugman quotes Democratic Senator Ben Nelson as saying the public plan is a “deal breaker,” because private insurance companies can’t compete and he implicates North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad as well.  “[Conrad] offers a  perfectly circular argument: we can’t have the public option, because if we do, health care reform won’t get the votes of senators like him,” Krugman says.

This reasoning has some teeth.  It doesn’t conflate a hypothetical with the stubborn  logistics of government in order to simply conclude that legislating is tough stuff.  No, instead  it tells me something important that I need to know about a crucial policy debate, which is what good column writing should accomplish.

Of course, I write this from Austria, where I’ve been asking everyone I meet about how their health care system–a single payer, government run program–measures up.  Though most Austrians have only public health insurance, private insurance is available for a price.  I asked one couple in Salzburg why someone would buy private insurance.  Was it to avoid long bureaucratic lines?  Was it to procure better treatment?  They shook their heads and said that the main reason to buy private health insurance was to ensure a private room and a bigger menu at the hospital.  The fact that this is the defining factor between public and private health insurance in some countries in fodder for 10 columns in itself.

Over at ESPN.com, sports columnist Rick Reilly has a feature called “The one E-Mail that Wasn’t Insulting,” in which he picks a critical reader response from his recent column and rebuts it.  I think this is a pretty neat feature, so I decided to steal it.  My column last week on the need for more political diversity (specifically more conservative voices) at UO generated a number of letters. Here are three gems.  Emphasis added.

(1) So really now, to become a faculty member at a university like this, you must have some intelligence and be somewhat aware of what’s going on in the world  around you. Is it possible that they simply have common sense? Once the republicans pull their heads out of their asses and decide to bring something constructive to the debate, instead of deliberately working to undermine the attempts of our current President, then it will be appropriate for their views to be included in the debate.

–UO Student Michael Vucinovich

Note:  Vucinovich gets huge bonus points for actually addressing me as the “Watchdog” in his letter.

(2) While I enjoyed your article about the dearth of Republican professors, the answer to your dilemma is quite obvious.  Professors, by definition, tend to be very intelligent individuals.  That would explain why so few professors are Republicans.

–Dave Taube

(3) You may be very upset that the University of Oregon, which, I may point out, is funded by people who live in a liberal state, and therefore, no surprise, tends to be liberal, attracts professor applying for a job who tend to be liberal. But as a student you have a choice. You do not have to come here. You most certainly can choose to spend your money to go to school in Alabama, or Texas, or Mississippi, or Georgia, or Louisiana or South Carolina.  And if you like conservatism, you can certainly attend the University of Texas, and you can walk past the statue of Jefferson Davis every day on your way to class.

–UO Journalism Professor Dan Morrison

Note:  I have invited Professor Morrison to publicly debate the merits of political diversity.  He has unfortunately declined.

Well, what can I say except that I was dead wrong.  My suggestion that UO is intolerant of ideas on the Right couldn’t have been more off base, as evidenced by these three pieces of feedback that argue that (a) conservative ideas should be blacklisted because they’re inappropriate (b) only stupid people are Republicans and (c) students at UO with conservative ideas should smarten up and flee to the South, as their sort of savage dogma is better served by universities with Confederate icons.

Yet regardless of these responses, I feel supremely unfulfilled. I think ideological diversity is important, but clearly a lot of other people disagree.  However, they haven’t done much to convince me.  For this reason, I’ve decided to offer a 12-pack of beer to anyone who will debate me on camera about the merits of ideological diversity in higher education. That’s right, all you have to do is spend thirty minutes hashing out the issue, and if at the end you can look into the camera and state “I don’t think it’s harmful that only around 2% of faculty members at UO are registered with the Republican Party,” you take home the brew of your choice.  If you’re not 21, 20 bucks.

In this time of economic crisis, we all need to do our best to stimulate spending.  Here at DanLawton.com, we’re more than happy to do our part.  Simply leave a comment with your email address or contact me at the email in the about section and you’ll be knocking back a dozen cold ones in no time.

Such is the assertion of UO undergraduate Becky Weissman, whose letter to the editor, “Emerald Should Run Unbiased Opinions,” decried the Oregon Daily Emerald’s decision to print a  guest opinion piece critical of Israel. According to Weismman, the article was biased, repugnant and “laced with unsupported claims.”

The piece in question was written by UO faculty member Mohamed Jemmali and mainly criticized the role of the U.S. in supporting Israeli acts of provocation.

Jemmali wrote: “I know that my taxes are supporting American weapons given to Israel to kill Palestinians, occupy their land and destroy their homes. I know America is the only supporter of Israel in the U.N. I know these are the primary causes of promoting hatred among Arabs against Americans.”

Though the tone of the opinion piece was indeed inflammatory and Mr. Jemmali’s politics bled right through, nothing in the piece advocated hate.  Weismann states that such a “volatile” article should not have been run and says,”If you insist on publishing an article laced with unsupported judgment, the appropriate measure would have been to place an article arguing the opposing point of view right next to Jemmali’s article.”

I agree that it’s always nice to see opposing points of view on the opinion page and it would benefit many newspapers if they ran point-counterpoint features on hot-button issues.  It also would have aided Jemmali’s article if he had substantiated his claims better.  But, the suggestion that newspapers should pull volatile content off the opinion page is flat wrong.

I can think of no better exercise in dialogue than two writers presenting different perspectives on an issue, which is what, by printing Weismman’s article, the ODE provided.  Though she alleged Jemmali’s claims were inaccurate, she provided no evidence.  She also showed a passionate bias herself, strongly identifying with the Jewish state and admitting that she took “personal offense” at some of the comments made.

The opinion page should be a medium for intelligent discourse and dissent.  Newspapers have a responsibility to make sure there is factual accuracy in their content, but just because a writer shows bias or aggression or writes in an inflammatory way doesn’ t mean their voice should be removed.  If we abandon hot-button issues and strong opinions in editorial journalism, we gut its most fundamental components.  Then, what’s the point of having an opinion page at all?

Among the full-time faculty of the University departments of journalism, law, political science, sociology and economics, there are 111 registered Oregon voters. Two of them are Republicans.

That’s what I discovered last week, via the public voting terminal at the Lane County Voting Office. I spent two hours there, with a spreadsheet full of names generated from the various department Web sites. It was a laborious process, but I was in no hurry. In fact, I even took a break to eat a sandwich and muse on the gorgeous summer weather outside. There would be plenty of time to continue the long, winding procession of faculty down the screen.

When I finished, there were 98 Democrats, nine Independents, two Republicans and two members of the Pacific Green party staring back at me. Both of the two Republicans were in the School of Law, and one of them was University President Dave Frohnmayer. I wondered, as I came across his name marked red in a sea of blue, if he was aware of the monolithic politics of University faculty. Did it irk him? Did it belie the diversity standards that his tenure had ushered in?

The Diversity Plan that Frohnmayer signed off on in May 2006 was a massive effort reviewed by more than 1,000 people, and will remain a prominent feature of his legacy. Contrary to popular belief, it is not just dedicated to increasing racial and ethnic diversity, but takes a broad-based approach to helping “the individual learn to question critically, think logically and communicate clearly.” In addition, it explicitly includes political affiliation as one of the elements of diversity it intends to promote.

Three years later, it’s hard to give the University’s efforts on political diversity anything besides a failing grade. Not only do voting statistics reveal political uniformity, but the checkbooks of the faculty members are just as indicative. Ninety-six percent of political contributions made by faculty to presidential candidates in 2008 went to Democrats. In 2004, it was 100 percent.

As a student with liberal social viewpoints and a middle-of-the-road economic philosophy, I didn’t expect to feel out of place at the University. I assumed the faculty would be primarily left-leaning, but that there would be a small yet formidable cadre of intellectual conservatives to provide the other side of the spectrum.

There wasn’t.

That’s not to say there isn’t a range of political viewpoints on campus. But those on the right of University faculty are basically Social Democrats, with the left represented by an anti-capitalism that flirts openly with Marx. When conservatism does enter the picture, it’s only as a punching bag for students and professors, a tired act that became all too frequent during the presidential election.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reflect,” Mark Twain once said. I spent my first few months as a graduate student here doing just that. I came back to school to prepare myself for a career in which I would be expected to defend my convictions. I matriculated seeking discourse and found conformity, and as I realized there would be little intellectual challenge going left, I drifted right.

In part, I believe this transformation aided my intellectual and professional development. Liberal journalism is so normative that it’s difficult to stake a claim. But if your politics are independent enough that you can occasionally gravitate across the aisle, there’s an expanse of fertile ground waiting. From this realization I have profited, but, in general, the dearth of conservative viewpoints damages the experiences of University students, regardless if they acknowledge it.

The lifeblood of learning is exposure to a diverse and combative set of viewpoints. This sort of framework allows students to sift through ideologies and compose their own independent belief systems. The concept of “diversity” and the “marketplace of ideas” shouldn’t just act as convenient adages for progressive grandstanding, but as a philosophy that operates at the core of higher education.

There needs to be movement – along with intellectual consistency – on the issue of political diversity by faculty and administrators. If queried, most professors would likely agree that a university with only 2 percent Democrats would be inadequate. However, when the discrepancy is in their favor, they appear uninspired to act.

As a student, I want a campus full of professors not only from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, but different political backgrounds as well. I want Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Marxists, Independents and anyone with a halfway decent idea that doesn’t incorporate hate. That’s what true diversity means to me. I want that more than free football tickets, a new basketball arena or pretty much anything else a University could offer. In exchange for paying $20,000 in tuition a year, I think I deserve it.

Don’t you.

This column was published in the Oregon Daily Emerald on June 1

Related Post:  Do Journalism Schools Need More Conservatives?

The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication hosted a conference on social media Wednesday that featured a cadre of journalists, media professionals and attorneys.  The discussion ranged from libel law to Twitter to Tillamook cheese, which has apparently generated a cult following online.

When I arrived, UO Law professor Ryan Vacca was giving an informative presentation on liability in Internet law. One of the most fundamental questions he answered, in my mind, was the liability of web hosts for the content of others.  I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone, in the form of a comment, appropriated content or wrote something libelous on my blog.

According to Vacca,  a blogger or message board host would most likely be protected in such a case under section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, which states that, ” No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”  From a strict liability perspective, Vacca said that the best way to deal with copyright claims on user content was not to to acknowledge them in writing, as doing so can potentially weaken protection.

The second panel featured a designer and administrator from PR and marketing firm Wagner Edstrom, who spoke about the different strategies their firm employed and advised graduating students on how to approach employers in the PR and marketing industry.  Also sitting on the second panel, was the sole journalist speaking at the event, Register Guard Entertainment Editor Senera Markstrom .  Markstorm paid a quirky homage to conventional media by breaking out a pink box labeled 1994 that contained a telephone and handwritten notes.  She also talked about integrating social media into her work at the Register Guard, which outside her, appears to have virtually no social media approach.

The keynote speaker at the panel was Lauren Gelman, Executive Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.  She spoke about the variety of the legal issues that continue to pop up as social media users post more and more personal information about themselves online.  In the Q and A session, I asked Gelman about her thoughts on the recent class-action settlement that Google negotiated on behalf of their digital book project.  Some, including myself, believe that if approved the settlement would give Google a monopoly on digital books.  When I asked Gelman if she thought fear of the plan was justified, she was brisk with her response, saying, “You should be terrified.”

All and all, it was a pretty solid event, but  I really would have liked to have seen more journalists speaking.  We know that P.R. gets the Internet–there are endless social media gurus out there to prove it–but there seems to be a dearth of voices on how journalism is effectively utilizing social media to combat its economic woes.  Although, that might be partly due to the fact that the future of journalism is a question that few people currently answer with much besides pessimism and abject nostalgia.

Read My Column on Google’s Book Project Here

As journalism forges its role in a digital paradigm rife with instability, one question will continue to pester it: Who are the real journalists now?

As the medium evolves, so do the labels, leaving many readers feeling helpless in evaluating authenticity among a mosaic of voices. In the throes of the new media revolution, credibility is more fluid than ever before. Sure, a New York Times byline may be impressive, but how does it fare against 25,000 Twitter followers and a top-10 Technorati blog?

Image by Patrick Finney

The answer, for the most part, is in the eye of the beholder; but the question gains much more saliency when it migrates from a media context into the realm of the law. Toss in an unsolved San Francisco homicide, a couple of First Amendment lawyers and a journalism student with a blog, and you’ve achieved the perfect storm of ingredients to wreak havoc on the California Shield Law.

A San Francisco State University journalism student – who has remained anonymous because of safety concerns – is invoking the shield law to resist attempts to turn over photographs and other information that police say could help them solve a murder. The student was working on a photojournalism project in a rough neighborhood when an individual he was profiling was murdered while shooting dice. The circumstances of the incident are cloudy, but when police arrived, the student was taking pictures of the victim and the scene. He may have also witnessed the slaying firsthand.

Lawyers for the student argue that because he had written blog posts about his project, he is protected under the California Shield Law. The majority of U.S. states have passed some degree of shield law legislation, which is intended to protect journalists from having to reveal confidential sources or information to law enforcement. The idea is simple enough: When doing valuable reporting, journalists often rely on confidential sources. If courts can force reporters to betray promises of anonymity, watchdog journalism will suffer.

The California Shield Law applies to journalists “connected with or employed by a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service.” Not surprisingly, there is no provision for journalism students or bloggers, but many First Amendment lawyers insist they are covered as well.

But if the Shield Law protects any and all bloggers, that potentially exempts an estimated 10 million-plus Americans from having to disclose information related to anything about which they are blogging. It’s hard to see how granting such widespread journalistic immunity helps either the rule of law or journalism flourish, outside of generating a new breed of citizen bloggers in the organized crime industry.

When press rights clash with the power of the judiciary, it is often a titanic battle. Both institutions are necessary components of a functioning democracy, and inhibiting either can have profound ramifications. When journalists are compelled to reveal certain confidential sources, it strikes a blow to public interest reporting, but when they are permitted to evade subpoenas for specious reasons, the judicial system is atrophied.

In this case, there is no anonymous source to be revealed: The source is in a grave. His killers are free and a citizen journalist who has valuable information is cloaking himself in the First Amendment not to protect the public interest, but because he is scared of retribution. Is his fear valid? It may be, but fear or danger are not allowances to dodge subpoenas and withhold information, nor should they be. It is rarely comfortable to testify in a murder case, but without the fortitude of key witnesses, thousands of additional murders would be unsolved. Just like any other citizen, the student journalist should be forced to disclose information and/or testify.

Shield laws should not be utilized as broad-based immunity invoked whenever convenient, but as rare exceptions in cases where the public interest is at stake. They should also not be available to every “Joe Blogger” out there, though online journalists doing rigorous and authentic reporting should be covered regardless of their medium. More importantly, journalists and First Amendment advocates should abandon a bit of their paranoia regarding journalists working with police.

Journalists are citizens too, and a press pass shouldn’t relieve them of basic civic responsibilities. If the creed of the press, as many suggest, is to seek truth and demonstrate a loyalty toward the populace, then it should promote such ideas by assisting the judiciary whenever ethically possible. Not doing so not only damages the legal process, but also sends the message that those seeking accountability from others are immune from it themselves.

This column was published in the Oregon Daily Emerald on May 27.

He may not be He may not be He may not beHe may not He may no

He He He may not be the most authentic journalist, but libertarian radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller has recently injected himself into the debate on torture in support of coercive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding.  This morning he decided to take the plunge himself. “I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture.” he said.  “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face….I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off’.”‘

But after six seconds, Mancow terminated the demonstration and had a change in heart. Visibly traumatized, he stammered, “I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.” Check out the video below as well as videos of three other journalists who have submitted to waterboarding.

Playboy Journalist Mike Guy was waterboarded in late April.  He wagered that he could last fifteen seconds, and only lasted six.

Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens was not only waterboarded for an August 2008 article, but even had himself abducted by ex-military interrogators to recreate the process.  He lasted under ten seconds and claimed that in the aftermath he suffered from paranoia and claustrophobia anytime he was out of breath.

The only journalist who appears to have fared well during waterboarding was FOX News correspondent Steve Harrigan.  However, after watching the reactions of the other journalists, it’s hard to imagine his interrogators were using the same methods.

Regardless of your politics, you have to respect any journalist who submits to waterboarding.  It does seem that the opinions of most these guys, excluding the FOX anchor, are pretty consistent after they experience the procedure:  it’s torture, no bones about it.

The crazy thing is that all of these journalists are in controlled situations in which they can stop the procedure at any time, which means it must be 100 times more intense for those who have no control.  Of course, not every journalist supporting waterboarding has stepped up to the plate.

FOX News anchor Sean Hannity–a proponent of waterboarding– said in late April that he would submit to the tactic in some sort of “charity” event. MSNBC anchor Keith Olberman has taken him to task, offering to donate $1,000 to a military charity for every second Hannity is waterboarded.  Post his boast and Olberman’s challenge, Hannity has kept mum on the issue.  My assumption is a Hannity waterboarding video would put the rest of these to shame. UPDATE:  Olberman has withdrawn the offer to Hannity and instead paid $10,000 to a charity of Mancow’s choice.

Related Post: Muzzling Bush’s Legal Mastermind

During a 2005 debate, former Bush legal adviser John Yoo was asked: “If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, is there a law that can stop him?”

Yoo’s answer: “No treaty,” and depending on the president’s belief at the time, no law.

It is similar legal opinions that have made John Yoo one of the most vilified lawyers in America. Yoo’s resumé from his tenure in the White House Office of Legal Counsel reads like a list of bullet points of the most widely criticized policies of Bush’s presidency. It was Yoo who provided the legal backbone to strip enemy combatants of Geneva Convention protections. It was Yoo who validated Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. It was Yoo who argued that the president was not subject to the War Crimes Act. And most notably, it was Yoo who authored a slew of memos deeming waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques legal.

For his actions, Yoo has been pilloried by the left as a sadistic tyrant who eviscerated the Constitution. The U.S. Justice Department has recommended his disbarment. He has been sued by the mother of U.S. detainee Jose Padilla, and officials in both Spain and Germany have brought war crimes charges against him.

Will Bunch Teaches John Yoo a Lesson About Appropriate Public Discourse

For these reasons, one might think Yoo’s prospects for future employment were dim. However, his past didn’t stop the Philadelphia Inquirer – Yoo’s hometown newspaper – from hiring the controversial lawyer to write a monthly column. Yoo’s writings, published under the headline “Closing Arguments,” are primarily about law. His most recent column argued against President Obama’s assertion that he will appoint a new Supreme Court justice who uses empathy in the courtroom.

Before serving in the Bush administration, Yoo served as a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His vast legal scholarship focused on U.S. foreign relations, international law and the Constitution’s separation of powers. He also wrote two books on foreign affairs and the War on Terror. Yoo even had a short stint as journalist; he spent a summer interning at The Wall Street Journal between college and law school. But for Will Bunch, a writer for The Philadelphia Daily News, Yoo’s credentials don’t make the cut for columnist material.

In a scathing blog post, Bunch harshly criticized the decision to hire Yoo. “As an American citizen, I am still reeling from the knowledge that our government tortured people in my name,” Bunch said. “As a journalist, the fact that my byline and John Yoo’s are now rolling off the same printing press is adding insult to injury.”

As a journalist and an American citizen, I couldn’t disagree more. The Philadelphia Inquirer has voiced an editorial opinion against harsh interrogation techniques; the fact that it would hire a law scholar who holds the opposite viewpoint is a testament to its commitment to promoting a marketplace of ideas. Too often, newspapers abandon rigorous discourse on the opinion page for an echo chamber of rants. Harold Jackson, the opinion editor of the Inquirer, said the paper has been adding more conservative columnists to provide ideological balance. “It means we aren’t afraid to let people hear what the other side has to say,” Jackson said. “We think most of our readers aren’t afraid, either.”

I wish Jackson was correct, but unfortunately many Americans don’t want discourse that challenges their belief structure. They’d rather write Yoo off as a sadistic yahoo and argue for his removal from the Inquirer than actually hear the basis for his political philosophy.

Bunch argues that the inclusion of Yoo in the Inquirer’s editorial page is another example of what he calls “on one hand, on the other hand journalism,” a practice in which newspapers provide equal time and authority to ideas regardless of their merits. This observation makes the grossly inaccurate assumption that Bunch or the staff of the Inquirer are the only ones qualified to pass judgment on the complexity of Yoo’s legal memos – they aren’t. However, Yoo is eminently qualified to provide a conservative interpretation of executive power and international law.

To suggest that editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer should make a moral judgment to prohibit discussions about legal issues and accordingly exclude Yoo’s voice for the paper is absurd. And to drape what is clearly an attempt in political censorship under the guise of patriotism is not only disingenuous, but a complete bastardization of what a free press is intended to provide.

Let me make this crystal clear: I don’t agree with what John Yoo has to say, but I find his opinions nowhere near as detestable as those who seek to muzzle him because he doesn’t fulfill their standard of appropriate speech. To remove Yoo would sully the history of debate that has made newspapers such a vibrant and important part of American culture. As someone who believes in the promise of journalism, I simply cannot tolerate that.

This column was printed in the Oregon Daily Emerald on May 18.  Props to Patrick Finney for the illustration.

Related Post:  John Yoo is Not a Nice Guy, Especially When He’s Filling Your Coffin With Insects

One of the most common complaints from newspaper readers is that no digital format can equal the aesthetic of reading a newspaper in print. The argument is that computer screens are either too bright, too small or just too plain difficult to use for enjoyable reading. I must confess that I’ve been somewhat of a disciple of this idea myself, but after using the new version of the New York Times Reader my print nostalgia is officially cured.

Designed by Adobe Air–who share some of their insights via video–the application offers the perfect confluence of print and digital features.  In the words of Wired Columnist Ryan Singel, “Journalism’s grey lady, the New York Times just threw down her cane and sprinted to the forefront of online newspapers.”

The reader’s interface is painstakingly clean.  Headlines appear on the main page and on the left navigation a list of sections similar to a newspaper table of contents reside.  The text has the look and feel of a print newspaper, but the hyperlinks and the convenient navigation of a news website.  Plopped down in the middle of my desktop, it felt as natural as reading a newspaper on a wooden desk; actually it felt a lot better.

The reader is an application that anyone can download for free, temporarily.  The free download gets you a healthy portion of NYT content, but for $15 bucks a month you can get it all.  It’s totally worth it.  The reader updates approximately every five minutes with new content.  It also gives you a week’s worth of content archives packaged by date.  So, just like a print newspaper, when you click on May 10, you get a digital newspaper from May 10.

If there is a flaw in the design, it’s that there is no way to be able to easily bookmark content.  It would be fabulous if somehow Delicious or another bookmarking application could be integrated into the reader.

Regardless, I congratulate The Times  for creating such a great product. There are so many different models to retrieve news online now–social bookmarking websites, Twitter, Facebook, RSS readers, etc–that often we overlook the fact that a news organization might be able organize its own content intuitively as well. The Times has accomplished that and more, and hopefully others take notice.  Meanwhile, I’m signing up for a subscription stat. (Oh, did I mention you can even fill in the crosswords via your computer!)

Download the NYT Reader Here