Politics halt here: Why we won't advertise candidates
Joy Pavelski
Issue date: 10/30/08 Section: Opinion
Ads are not created equal. A mechanic offering car repair is not the same as a strip club offering live pornography or a candidate offering change to equally willing buyers. Some actions directly and provably destroy us and our community. A newspaper retains not just the right but its accompanying responsibility to distinguish good and bad public information in advertising, just as many newspapers do not print names of rape victims for the victim's privacy or gory details of suicides to avoid copycat deaths. Moral standards do not equal harmful bias or propoganda.
Ignoring such ethical concerns can only mean faster and more deadly decline into tabloid, ethics-for-hire journalism.
That does not mean Obama ads equal strip club specials. It means that, for the reasons above and because a candidate receiving your vote can later coerce your actions (unlike a shopkeeper, who cannot force your business), political ads deserve different treatment. From now on, they will get it, no matter how much they offer. Destroying our purpose for existence is not worth $600, or anything.
Some Collegian editors agree with me, some don't. I called this alone. Let me know what you think: jpavelski@hillsdale.edu.
Ignoring such ethical concerns can only mean faster and more deadly decline into tabloid, ethics-for-hire journalism.
That does not mean Obama ads equal strip club specials. It means that, for the reasons above and because a candidate receiving your vote can later coerce your actions (unlike a shopkeeper, who cannot force your business), political ads deserve different treatment. From now on, they will get it, no matter how much they offer. Destroying our purpose for existence is not worth $600, or anything.
Some Collegian editors agree with me, some don't. I called this alone. Let me know what you think: jpavelski@hillsdale.edu.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Roni
posted 10/30/08 @ 1:07 PM EST
Finally, some common sense in the media!
Hugh
posted 10/30/08 @ 7:45 PM EST
*golf clap*
G T Baker
posted 11/03/08 @ 1:33 PM EST
You are correct in your actions. Whether it be conservative or liberal political advertising is by its very nature designed to defeat objectivism.... (Continued…)
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