Free Speech for the Dumb

One way to get attention is to run around a heavy-traffic area screaming all the obscenities and racial slurs you can think of. People will divert their gaze toward you, your points will be duly noted and some passerbys will even agree with you. That, if nothing else, is a way to go about things.

Most newspaper opinion pages aren't as removed from this scenario as their editors would like to believe. Columnists are hired for the sole reason of stirring interest. If they fail this, they are fired, plain and simple. Although a reporter can succeed by being as interesting as oatmeal (plain oatmeal), columnists must be the outlandish mascots cheering on the newspaper squad. It's awkward for all involved.

A good column is provocative, insightful and/or unique. It's incredibly difficult, at least for me, to reach two of those three regularly in my own writing, so I look rather favorably on those who can do so routinely. They are the best, after all.

Unfortunately, an alternative route has led many a screaming maniac toward success, and it should no longer be permitted. There's this idea, whether acknowledged or not, that provocative is the same as controversial. That just phoning in a piece that takes an opposing view, and doing so outlandishly, is enough to warrant space in a newspaper. In fact, the most divisive of columnists, be they local or national, have a legion of fans and haters debating not the quality of the argument, but how close it is their own. That's a huge problem, and that amount of buzz should not be confused with a columnist's worth.

Using a college newspaper as an example only because there's already the perception of amateurism (often true, yeah, yeah), it would be a huge mistake to continue publishing a column for the sole reason that people talk about it. I firmly believe that subtlety and content wins out in the end. Otherwise, the only impression that's left to the reader is that the page is flash, not substance. Newspapers aren't cable news and shouldn't act as such.

I know the goal of an op/ed page is always to engage the readers, but publishing anyone blatantly close-minded is purely condescending to the audience's intelligence. The point of running a column is not to cement anyone as a local celebrity. It's a trap that's very easy to fall into, and something I will try to keep in mind for next year, Reader.

-30-
The screaming on a street corner route.

The clever, but smug route