Every school year, some small number of students at the University die, whether by suicide, drug overdose, illness or car accident. No matter what the cause of death, The Daily Tar Heel always faces the difficult dilemma of whether and how to report it.
As the now familiar mantra goes, September 11, 2001, changed America forever. Certainly we have lost much as a country: our innocence, our sense of security, our isolation from the rest of the world's problems. But even those Americans deepest in mourning can concede that some good has come of the disaster. The fallout has brought Americans together in a way unprecedented in most of our lifetimes. Almost 9 of ten Americans are standing proud behind a president who didn't even win a majority of the popular vote a year ago.
On a day like Sept. 11, while most of the world was paralyzed with shock, newspaper journalists everywhere grudgingly recognized that "Now is not the time to be paralyzed. We have a paper to produce." For The Daily Tar Heel staff, that recognition must have come a little more grudgingly than for most journalists. After all, their world is only two decades old, and it had just changed forever in a matter of seconds. But the DTH responded as it should have. The morning of Sept.
I think I heard a giant choking sound coming from the direction of Carroll Hall on Friday morning when the journalism school occupants read the editorial page of The Daily Tar Heel. At least that's what I hope I heard. Everyone, not just journalists, should have been gagging, choking, and downright sick to their stomachs after reading that the DTH -- the symbol of First Amendment freedom that it is -- was strongly advocating on-campus censorship.
In the interest of full journalistic disclosure, I should confess that I am unqualified to be this year's DTH ombudsman. When I took the position at the end of the spring semester, I had no idea what I was getting into. At the time, I reminded myself that I have life experience on my side, having lived two years in a village in Togo, West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. I have professional experience as well, having worked this summer at the Lexington Herald-Leader, a newspaper tied for 26th best in the country according to Columbia Journalism Review.
