Monday, June 12, 2006
Editorial: Stop treating campus journalists like kids
Virginia's prohibition against alcohol ads in college newspapers denies students a lesson in real-world responsibility.
From the RoundTable blog
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Virginia's puritanical instinct to cocoon college students from wicked drink is headed to court. Last week, campus newspapers at Virginia Tech and The University of Virginia filed suit against the commonwealth's ban on alcohol advertising in student publications. They deserve a victory in time to break out the champagne for the first issue of the new school year.
Last fall, Tech's Collegiate Times asked the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to drop its policy prohibiting student papers from accepting most alcohol advertising. That rule reflects state law, however, and the ABC could not comply.
The General Assembly could have fixed the problem during its regular session this year, but it declined to do so. That leaves only the courts.
While other publications bolster their advertising income with alcohol ads, the state cuts off student papers just because some readers are underage.
Campus publications do have many young readers, but they also have many of legal age -- seniors, graduate students, faculty and staff. Half of the potential Tech readers, by a conservative estimate, are old enough to drink.
Student newspapers have the same First Amendment protections as other publications, and that includes the right to take advertising dollars from purveyors of beer and wine. The distinction between collegiate and professional publications is false.
In 2004, a federal appeals court declared as much when it struck down a similar ban in Pennsylvania on free speech grounds. Nor was that an alleged liberal, activist court. Samuel Alito, one of President Bush's conservative appointees to the Supreme Court, penned the Pennsylvania decision.
The fact that Tech's newspaper receives no public financing further weakens the state's tenuous authority in this case. The school spun off an independent media corporation years ago, and the Collegiate Times now gets nearly all of its revenue from advertising.
The policy also denies students an opportunity to learn. Campus newspapers are the laboratories for future journalists, the places where they prepare to take responsible positions in the world.
Just as chemistry students need real chemicals, young journalists must face the real ethical and business questions of advertising.
For now, the student journalists at Tech and UVa get to learn a different lesson: Sometimes you have to fight for your rights against government paternalism.
