Digging in the Archives: College Speech Rules

While digging through a box of old files yesterday, I discovered a lot of old articles by and about me. No, I'm not necessarily vain; if I were, I wouldn't have stuffed them in crummy old folders that I then put into a box I forgot about for nearly 10 years.

The articles range from editorials and columns I wrote at The Badger Herald student newspaper (when I was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) to letters I wrote to magazines and newspapers, guest columns for various publications, and articles in which I was quoted.

Most of it will not interest you any more than it (dis)interests me any longer. But a few items were pleasant surprises, including the article above (click on the image to see a bigger version). The article, which appeared in the October 21, 1990, Chicago Sun-Times, reported the reactions of some UW students to the then-hot topic of hate-speech rules. As a columnist and former editor of the Herald, I had written quite a bit about the attempts of the UW chancellor to implement severe restrictions on campus speech. (I won't go completely into it here, but suffice it to say that I think hateful speech thrives in the underground, and it's better that good people take on such statements head-to-head; the average person should be educated enough – or should get educated enough by their university – to be able to refute hateful and ignorant statements; in addition, the proposed rules were so vague that I thought it endangered professors who taught concepts and ideas that offended students; if you're a fundamentalist of any religion and you take a class on biology, that's your problem – I believed and still believe – so prepare to be offended and don't bother me with your offendedness.)

Anyway, the Sun-Times talked to representatives of the conservative and liberal daily student papers, finding both of us opposed to the speech restrictions. That should have been a sign to the UW administration. Years later, when the chancellor was profiled by The New Yorker, she said she had pushed the speech rules because it's what the campus wanted. Untrue.

But that was 21 years ago. Forgotten and placed in a box.

The best news is that in all of that archival digging yesterday, I was successful in finding what I was seeking: my complete collection of Bunky comic strips, the cool but short-lived comic produced by my stepfather, Lyle Lahey, back in 1975. It will play a role in the second edition of my science fiction and science magazine Galaxis (first issue still available free here or for print-on-demand at cost here). Stay tuned.

How the Chicago Sun-Times Was Saved: A Near-Death Experience

The sad stories of historic newspapers dying out have been all too frequent in the past decade, so it's great to see this story from the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal about how competitor Chicago Sun-Times has come back from the brink.

How close to the brink was the paper?

The company had already drawn up the notices to employees telling them the company was being closed. That close.

Though I haven't lived in Chicago for a decade, I am still glad to see that it continues to have two major dailies. The two papers compete head-on, and the city benefits from having two papers that are pretty good. That's more than most big cities can say these days.

Read Rosenthal for more, including Sun-Times columnist Roger Ebert's optimistic take on the new ownership structure.

Tribune Reorg to Include Widescale Selloffs?

The Chicago Sun-Times reports on possible outcomes of the Tribune Company bankruptcy reorganization drama in Chicago. Real Estate investor Sam Zell bought Tribune and took it private two years ago in a heavily leveraged deal. Though the core properties in the group -- including the Trib and the LA Times -- were profitable, there was billions of dollars in debt, and the company was then double-whacked by the current economic crisis.

Creditors are losing patience with Zell, according to the Sun-Times, and Zell could be forced out if they come up with their own reorganization plan. If that happens, the creditors would take control and could do a widescale sell-off of Tribune Company papers and other properties. (The Chicago Cubs are already for sale.) Besides the Tribune, Cubs, and Los Angeles Times, the company owns Chicago magazine, WGN tv and radio ("WGN," by the way, stands for "world's greatest newspaper," which actually once was the boast of the Tribune), Tribune Entertainment, and more -- oh, just let Wikipedia tell you.

Very sad to see a once-great media firm go through such tribulations. I frankly don't know if they're better off with Zell or the creditors in charge; it looks like either way, the company will be chopped up.