According to the minutes for the November D:F/M faculty meeting, D:F/M Chair Jay Roman and Colleagues Bob Stanley and Karen Hunter (right now, I regard Colleague Hunter as a sort of overpaid journalistic diletante with a scurrilous reputation for making despicable comments about atheists) and others whose names were not in the minutes, were distressed that Colleague Parisi was being “singled” out for his comments supporting news censorship of the WORD.
![Peter Parisi [From his facebook page]](https://blog.hunterword.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/peewee-parisi-21-187x200.jpg)
Peter Parisi [From his facebook page]
That is, some or many – it wasn’t clear in the minutes if there were many or few, department minutes have and are easily falsified so one has to read between, under and over the lines – are/were experiencing distress over a tag in my email messages which reads:
BOYCOTT the Aronson Awards – Tell Peter Parisi James Aronson Never Supported News Censorship – blog.hunterword.com
– Journalism/Media Professors Who Support News Censorship Should be Publicly Pilloried – blog.hunterword.com
– The WORD, hunterword.com
– The WORD blog, blog.hunterword.com
– The WORD at the Democratic National Convention, 2012
– The WORD at the Democratic National Convention, 2008
– The WORD at the Tribeca Film Festival, 2010, 2011, 2012
– TheWORD at the New York Film Festival, 2012, 2012
– The WORD at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, 2012
According to the minutes, the Chair was to contact the overseers of Hunter-L and report back to the department. I was sitting in the December faculty meeting reading the comments/statements from that November meeting, which I missed, and was considering announcing to those in the faculty room that the Hunter-L overseers had informed me that a complaint had been lodge. I resolved the matter to the overseers’ satisfaction, which, of course, meant to the dissatisfaction of my Colleagues (which should occur once they learn about the resolution).
The Colleagues in the room, of course, could have tried to have a serious discussion about news censorship but, of course, they didn’t. They don’t like to talk if they feel they won’t win an argument nor intimidate the Colleague who is getting the best of them in the argument.
I am waitinguntil the Chair makes some kind of announcement in the near future about his contact with them. Right now, I’m trying to wrap up the semester and complete final grades so I don’t have time to address this issue with the kind of details that it needs. But I believe any journalism professor who says he believes in censorship on occasion and tries to assist an attack on the WORD deserves all the umbrage that comes with that hypocrisy. Especially someone who has attached himself to the legacy of James Aronson.
However, Colleagues Jay Roman, Bob Stanley and Karen Hunter did raise an important issue: Shouldn’t other supporters of news censorship in D:F/M be identified?
In the meantime:
BOYCOTT THE ARONSON AWARDS: SEND PETER PARIS AND THE OTHERS A MESSAGE.
The Usual Suspects
Tags: First Amendment, Freedom Of The Press, news censorship