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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 1986)
Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, January 31, 1986 Opinion What causes honest people to change into comet liars? The country seems to be di vided between those who have seen Halley’s Comet and those who say they have. It isn’t like 1910 when everyone- d i d see it. This time if you blinked Aft BuChWQld your eyes you : could have easily missed it. Yet, as Halley’s Comet fades behind the sun, more and more Americans are pretending they sighted it. These citi zens will tell you, “I saw Halley’s Comet last night with my opera glasses.” There is no reason for you to doubt them until you remember it was so foggy last night that they had to shut down the airport. Why do otherwise honest people, the pillars of our communities, many who wouldn’t even pick up a discarded news paper from a bus, lie about what they saw in the heavens? The answer is that since Halley’s Comet has been so hard to spot, status seekers are forced to resort to perjury in order to impress their friends. If claiming you saw the comet when you didn’t is just a way of keeping up with the Joneses, then I say more power to the fibber. But what makes this prac tice so dastardly is that it does injustice to the people who actually have spotted it. Those who stood outside all night in the freezing cold stabbing their fingers at the skies deserve a lot more respect than the ones who stayed in bed with their heads under the blankets looking at photos of Halley’s in People mag azine. The reason I am incensed about all this is that I happened to see Halley’s Comet the other night. I refused to mention it to anyone because it’s the sighting and not the bragging that counts with me. Then Novak came down the hall and claimed that he had seen it. I have been suspicious of Novak’s comet sightings ever since he an nounced in 1973 that he viewed Kohou- tek and told everyone that it was on a crash course with earth. The people in the office were quite impressed that Novak had seen Halley’s Comet, but no one thought to find out if he was telling the truth. “What did it look like?” I wanted to know. He replied, “A dirty snowball.” He could easily have read that in Penthouse magazine, so I asked him, “How long was it?” “As long as the dirtiest snowball I’ve ever seen,” Novak replied. “That long?” I said. “Did you see the tail on it?” I thought I had him. Novak said, “It was too dirty to see the tail. I was lucky to get a glimpse of its mouth.” I was leading him right into a trap. “And what did the mouth look like?” “A big dirty snowball streaking across the sky.” “Did it fly past the moon?” “Of course it flew past the moon. What kind of comet do you think it is?” “Not so fast, Novak,” I said. “I saw Halley’s Comet last night and it was no where near the moon.” “Well, it was so dirty I couldn’t tell what it was passing. All I know is the sky is falling.” “People have been lying about Hal ley’s Comet for 2,225 years.” Novak was adamant. “I know what I saw. It was a snowball, and it whizzed right past the moon.” “Where was it going?” “It was on a crash course with earth.” Art Buchwald is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Media hype, sensationalism threaten credibility with public Hype and sen sationalism are words members of the news media are keenly familiar with. Webster’s Dictionary defines sensationalism as the use of subject matter which re lates to the senses. Tuesday many ■" of us saw r the space shuttle Challenger explode, instantly killing the seven crew members aboard. Following the incident, hype and sen sationalism pervaded the news media. Huge color photographs and large headlines consumed front pages. News papers used the shuttle explosion to sell newspapers on Wednesday. That’s sen sationalism. But for many newspapers just sensa- tionalistic coverage wasn’t enough. Hype was included too. The event was publicized in a way which exceeded the limits of necessity. The explosion story needed to be told, but most papers filled their front sections with articles on ev erything from the explosion itself to the reactions of Christa McAuliffe’s high school class. For example, one of the Houston pa pers filled the entire 16-page front section with the story and others related to it. The hype was evident even as the day’s issue sat in the newsstand. Big red letters were printed over a full-color, half-page photograph of the event. But the shuttle explosion is just the latest example of the ongoing hype and sensationalism in today’s media. In re cent months terrorists have relished the attention the news media has given them. What it boils down to is that such “o- verreporting” can make a lot of money for publishers. However, news credibil ity can be destroyed at the same time. It’s the journalist’s job to report events in a clear, correct and credible manner so the public can be informed enough to make intelligent decisions and form opinions conducive to a strong society. Hype and sensationalism like we’ve experienced this past week is not a part of good journalism. No rules govern such coverage, and as long as we are to enjoy freedom of the press, none will. But the news media must learn to control their desire to over cover “big news” before the entire in dustry loses credibility in the eyes of the public. Trent Leopold is a senior journalism major and a columnist for The Battal ion. The Battalion USPS 045 360 Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Michelle Powe ' Kay Mallett Loren Steffy Jerry Oslin Cathie Anderson ....Travis Tingle Editorial Policy 7 he Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspaper bperated as a community service to Texas AScM and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the Editorial Board or the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, faculty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Department of Communications. ■ ' The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examina tion periods. Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester. $33.25 per school year and $35 per full year. Advertising rates fur nished on request. .-c Our address: The Battalion, 216 Reed McDonald Building, Texas A&M University. College Station, TX 77843. Second class postage paid at College Station. TX 77843. Editor Managing Editor Opinion Page Editor City Editor News Editor Sports Editor Trent Leopold Mail Call Letters to the Editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorial stall reserves the, to edit letters for style and length but will make every efTort to maintain the authors intern.t letter must be signed and must include the address and telephone number of the writer. By v up i )hol at ro 1 ^ Not a liberating factor ■petia ■erin; ■Haw, EDITOR: In the Battalion last Thursday there was a column regarding abortb 0 |studi explaining why a woman would have one. Believing life begins at concepBliecc tion, we believe abortion is murder. Hp a However, our motivation for writing this letter w as not to debate an un tht law, born child’s fate, but rather to voice our concern tor women who haveh. H n<i or plan to have abortions. We noticed that throughout the article tht a thor showed concern about women — their rights, their financial situatioi etc. If there is a true concern for women, perhaps we effects abortion has had on our female populati It might appear that abortion is a reasonable alternative mo he s; Current ■ice m hould examine theBjon,] j-d to an un-Heim birth detects. spei planned pregnancy or having a child with severe since we are so concerned about Women’s rights. In reading material written by members of Women Exploited by Abut tion (WEBA), a nationwide organization of women w ho have had abortions and later regretted it, we learned some darker aspects of this controvert subject. For instance, some women who have abortions on their first pregnar have to have hysterectomies because of perforated uteruses. I hev never have another child. Infertility and sterility, as well as mam othe physical complications can result. Members of WF.BA experienced son- deep psychological problems becuase of their abortions. In an article on abortion in 1978, the Chicago Sun-Times printed' Desperate women made their way to appointments at Michigan Ave.abor tion mills. Some are pregnant; some are not. It doesn’t matter. Most them will be sold abortions. For abortion profiteers there is money tok made and no time to waste.” In this half-billion-dollar-a-year industry, pregnant women have be come prey to half-truths and fancy sales pitches. They many times donot really get to make an educated choice. We believe widespread abortion is producing a generation of bitter hurt and exploited women. It is not liberating women, but only entangling: them in deeper problems. Melissa Meyer Christie Yeates jVUR In, f Scmii Bci.m ■ mt'ii It- cl i ■ dm An unassailable point EDITOR: Your “MIND OVER MATERIALISM” editorial written by the“Battii lion Editorial Board,” whoever they are, makes one unassailable point. Its | good idea to help others. Amen. How do you and I do it? A tough question. One thing we know forsurtl If we’re broke, we can’t help someone else. So it’s important that vvemakej some money, honestly, by providing a product or service for which peoplfl voluntarily pay their hard earned money. If we all “focus” on doing something useful for our fellow man —sotne-l thing that enriches his life — we'll enrich our own lives spirituallv ami materially. In our society, today, we have too many “concerned groups” remindimI us of ageless truisms and too few investing their blood, sweat and resourap in the productions of worthwhile goods and services. It is comforting to know that the majority of our youth embraces ttitl idea of success and ignores the drivel of “social awareness” preaching. * Joe G. Bergstad EDITOR'S NOTE: The members of the Battalion Editorial Boardanl listed in the staff box at the bottom of this page every day. ‘Academics Anonymous’ EDITOR: No doubt you’ve heard about the shadowy spy organization called Ac curacy in Academia. You know, the informal group of self-proclaimed sm dent experts who have volunteered their services to evaluate the perfor mance of professors. Quite a heated controversy happened last year, over the privileges vs. abuses of academic freedom in the classroom. It’s one thing, though, to read about something — and another toactu ally witness “Academics Anonymous” in operation. It isn’t hard to peg the AIA moles — they’re the people who ask really convoluted questionsi« class, when everyone else is pressed just to keep pace with the lecture, tak ing notes and trying to figure out what the teacher is talking about. Usually even the professor is quite confused by the questions posedb) the student “evaluator.” It’s nice for a change, though, to see a lecturer) little hot under the collar! Those wacky questions don’t do much, however, to help the learningai- mosphere of the classroom. Most people don’t realize that university pro fessors have a quite busy schedule — lecturing, preparing tests, wntin| journal articles, conducting research, supervising graduate students anil keeping up with the latest developments in their field are just a few of their | duties. “iBr To have an arrogant, antagonistic subversive in the class only adds to the stressful routine, reducing the quality of the information passed on dur ing the limited time allotted to students in the class. I say the AIA stooget could better spend their time in pursuit of an education, rather than reduc ing the quality of education provided for themselves, and their classmates William H. Clark II Seeing the light EDITOR: In response to Brian Sterling’s letter (Jan. 29), I, like you Brian was bo- trapped by the “sweet melodiousness” of this New Age music. But this it) 1 not all, because soon afterwards, very strange things began to happen. . I began going to Dr. G’s, changed my major to environmental design and even had an earring put in my ear. I even started to like Karl Pallmevtf and AGREEING with what he had to say. But the worst was yet to come, because I changed into a liberal DEMO CRAT, a fate worse than death in my household. I worked for the Mond;il f campaign and even VOTED for him. Well this was just too much for my parents, so in true Southern Bapb* 1 tradition, my parents burned my New Age record collection and then kicked me out of the house. My mother even joined Tipper Gore's rtf 11 campaign, MANA (Mothers Against New Age Music). Twi All had left was my Walkman and a Twisted Sister tape. In despetf'l tion, I turned it on and then the voice of God and the multitude of angcM spoke to me and said, “We’re not going to take it, Hell no, We’re not r"" 11 to take it anymore.” This was when I saw the true light. I dusted off my old Motley Crueaiw Judas Priest albums and reveled in all their glory. Then I cancelled my sub scription to the New York Times and placed an order for the Hour dI Prophecy. Thanks to you Brian, I have been able to bear my soul to the rest of hu-1 manity and hopefully spread the word to other people so that they may; find the true and only light. God bless each and every one of you. Ralph Kramer