Post readers,
Opinion page readers probably noticed that the usual Tuesday and Wednesday
columns were switched this week, and that today's I Love College!!¥¥ accuses The
Post of censorship. Columnist Andy Sager claims that ¥¥Post¥¥ editors decided at the last minute Monday night not to run his column because they do not trust readers enough to think on their own. ¥¥The Post¥¥ recognizes the right of Andy Sager and every other ¥¥Post¥¥ columnist to share his or her opinions with their readers, even if those opinions are critical of ¥¥The Post¥¥ and its editors. With very few limits, columnists can discuss their opinions and address them however they choose. But the column Sager turned in for Tuesday crossed the few limits ¥¥The Post does impose on its columnists.
The reason Sager's column did not run is that the editors that read it deemed it
subpar. As it was written, Sager's column did not make a point or reach a conclusion.
Without a clear purpose, his column could easily have been interpreted as meant to make
fun of black people. Although he claimed his column made fun of Ohio University students from privileged backgrounds who act black
Sager's approximation of what he calls ghetto slang was exploitative in a way that many Post readers could find hurtful and offensive. Some editors who read it even compared his column to writing in blackface.
His column had no introduction or explanation to show he was just kidding, nor any summation to make his final point.As editors, it is our job to decide when a writer's work is not good enough to be published. I say not good enough because that was the problem with Sager's column: It was not up to standards for publishing in The Post. Sager's cries of censorship are not quite fair.
It is fairly common for Post editors to delay articles from running in the paper.
In the journalism world, we call this holding stories. When editors decide to hold a story, it gives the reporters and editors extra time to do more research and improve the writing. This same writing standard applies to the columnists on the opinion page.
Because of our problems with Sager's column, Post editors gave him an extra
day to rework it and ran Philip Ewing's column instead. We explained to Sager that our
problem with the column was that it needed a stronger point, and that in its original form, we thought it was pointlessly offensive. Sager was also offered the option of adding an
introduction to his column to explain the character he had taken on, as well as its
purpose. However, after one attempt at rewriting his column, Sager declined these options. Instead of turning in a column clearly vocalizing his original point, he decided to write a column accusing his editors of censoring him.
The censorship claim would make sense if Post editors had told him that we
were not running his column because we did not agree with it. That simply was not the case. Sager's past columns have at times been offensive, and he has put forth opinions with which many Post editors do not agree. The editors have not asked him to change his copy to spoon-feed readers or ask them not to think. If Sager's column had simply
made a point The Post's editors did not agree with, they would not have questioned its
appearance on the editorial page.
The decision to run or hold any story is never taken lightly, and a column would
only be withdrawn if it were unreasonably offensive. Although offending people's senses in order to provoke thought or make a point is not intrinsically bad, in Sager's case, it was not done in the service of any larger purpose.
- Post Editor Erica Ryan encourages reader responses to both Sager's column and this
letter at erica.ryan@ohiou.edu. 17
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Erica Ryan
