"Theft" of Free Newspapers (was Re: Student Protests Against Horowitz Ad)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>At 07:40 PM 3/28/01 -0500, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>Brown students of color correctly acted in protest against the 
>>Brown _Daily Herald_ -- a student paper that should be accountable 
>>to students -- which sold its soul *and readers* to Horowitz the 
>>advertiser for the sake of racist dollars.  And they did so without 
>>breaking any law (unless Providence and/or Rhode Island has a law 
>>against destroying "free" newspapers -- see my postscript below). 
>>:-)
>
>as i mentioned, brown and other papers that ran horowitz's ad are 
>not official university newspapers.  in brown's case it is a 
>non-profit organization, founded in 1975 likely (as in the case of 
>Berk and Wisc) b/c the censorship of their respective 
>universities/uni politics during the 60s and 70s meant that they 
>chose to break free of uni demands, etc.
>
>kelley

At 10:14 AM -0500 3/19/01, Doug posted:
>Chronicle of Higher Education - web daily - March 19, 2001
>
>Newspaper Ad Challenging Reparations for Slavery Ignites a Debate 
>About Free Speech at Brown U.
>By ANDREW BROWNSTEIN
>
>In a statement released on Saturday, they took aim at the 
>newspaper's independence from Brown, which it won after fights with 
>the administration during the Vietnam War. "We find this newspaper 
>masquerading as a university paper, is in fact simply a private 
>corporation," the statement said. "The crux of our actions is to 
>create awareness about our lack of a Brown community paper." The 
>paper's defenders say that its budgetary independence from the 
>university allows it to print controversial articles without fear of 
>cuts.

The Brown _Daily Herald_ editors see the paper as "independent" of 
Brown; the student activists of color regard the paper as "a private 
corporation" (that is non-profit in the sense that Brown, too, is 
non-profit) "masquerading as a university paper" & point to the 
absence of "a Brown community paper."  Both are correct -- 
independence has a double-edged reality (just like free labor) in the 
world of "Freedom, Equality, Property, & Bentham."

Yoshie