What was the lesson Sarah Jeglum learned, thanks to her flailing reign at The Daily?

Free speech is for everyone. It’s not just for the majority, and it’s not just for the minority. It’s not just for people you agree with, and it’s not just for people you disagree with. It’s for you, and it’s for every person on this campus and in this community.

Thanks for the lecture on free speech, Sarah! It’s for everyone, right? Why are all these liberal weenies giving you such grief for publishing Op-eds and editorials promoting the poor, beleaguered ultra-conservative traditional values? Poor Sarah!

As one UW community member to another, let me tell you something. The problem isn’t agreement or disagreement. The problem isn’t the opinions you published. Your mistake was publishing lies, under the banner of fact—the outright lies and fabrications about a threatened minority group.

Let’s revisit the infamous article by John Fey—that you decided to publish, and now continue to defend—picking out the indefensible lies and fabrications within.

…There is nothing constitutional about gay marriage on a state or federal level…

…homosexuality is more of an emotional condition, and we should not, for that reason alone, start passing laws condoning it…

…Being homosexual, like other emotional tendencies, doesn’t make someone a bad person, but it’s a problem that needs to be dealt with, not denied….

….Also, the Christian concept of marriage predates any state-sanctioned licensing program, which means marriage is an inherently religious concept in America. Any state interpretation of marriage that violates traditional church views may well be a violation of the First Amendment….

…The potential of open homosexuality for creating social dysfunction has been made manifest…

…It’s hard to tell someone they should respect basic social rules — such as not harassing people for honest disagreement — when they already reject other customs, such as traditional marriage….

I’m exercising a hard standard for fact here, selecting only the most egregious violations of reality that form the backbone of John Fey’s essay. Every single on of these statements is readily, easily and definitively refutable after even cursory examination.

(Take the massive, overwhelming, credible, sound, tenable, probable, corroborating, confirming, affirmative collection of scientific evidence confirming that being gay is an intrinsic trait—not an emotional condition, a problem or social dysfunction.)

Yet, you published this—a piece making inflammatory and vicious accusations against a minority group—despite the obvious and unavoidably malevolent falsehoods contained within, further choosing to illustrate it with this graphic:

Listen, I’m all for dissenting voices for having a public voice. But, even in Op-Ed pieces, there is a line. You cannot allow your writers to fabricate reality, and then draw conclusions upon fabrications.

Would you publish an essay, starting with the premise that Jews have horns? That black people are incapable of rational adult thought? I assure you, you can find people in our community with these opinions—as filled with hate and irrational fear as John Fey apparently was when he wrote his screed.

People with such opinions are welcome to exercise their free speech; as a gatekeeper to a powerful medium, you aren’t required to offer any of them a platform to distribute their hatred.

You are in charge of a widely read publication—supported more solidly than virtually any other media outlet in the city, thanks to the money taken from your fellow students. You are the strong in this situation, the loud, the powerful. In this position, you allowed your power to be used to harm—with the gravest and most vicious deceit—a minority group just stripped of a fundamental right the rest of us can enjoy in life.

I suggest you have at least one more lesson to learn before your editorship is done.

Jonathan Golob is an actual doctor.

41 replies on “The Daily’s New Standard for Reality”

  4. Which commandment is it that prohibits bearing false witness (aka lying)? I forget. If some of Leviticus is valid, isn’t it all valid? I get so confused sometimes.

  6. Not to nitpick, Jonathon, but if you want to tell someone about a lesson they should have learned…you probably don’t want to start your article with a mistake.

    I think you need the word “the” between “was” and “lesson”.

    Fix that and you’re gold.

  7. Besides being so completely off the mark and offensive; that graphic totally sucks for style reasons… BIG TIME. The “man” or “person” symbol is obviously redrawn (badly) based on signage, but the sheep is just a random sheep’s silhouette, probably clip art. If you going to use the simple person shape, you’ve got to draw up a sheep icon to match. That would be correct. But then what? Would that mean “sheep and men’s room only”? Nothing about signage icons implies marriage. It just sucks, sucks, sucks. If I were a complete asshole saddled with the task of created bigoted graphics to accompany an crappy editorial, I’d AT LEAST march my ass down to Archy McPhees and grab me a plastic sheep, plastic man, and stick it on a cake for a goddamn photo… that or draw the damn thing.

    For that reason, but mostly for a dozen others, the paper deserves all the ire it’s getting.

  12. Right fucking on, Golob. I’m glad the world has you to state plainly and clearly what others would like to see obscured and muddled. This isn’t a free-speech issue, Sarah. It’s an issue of journalistic integrity. Or, put another way, its a you-are-a-lying-cunt issue.

  14. Thank you, Jonathan. This is the best, most clear post about this. It’s not about ‘free speech’ or ‘both sides’ of the issue, it’s about publishing hate-filled lie-ridden articles. It wouldn’t be such an issue if it was a rational argument against gay marriage (if there is such a thing), but it’s filled with ignorance and lies.

  15. Not only is it just un-classy, tasteless and tactless, but you are representing an institution with your paper (UW). This is not YOUR paper! You may be the editor, but all that means is that some moron thought you were qualified enough to make serious decisions about what should be said in a SCHOOL publication. I agree that this person has the right to have uninformed, idiotic opinions, but you can respectfully decline to share them in a newspaper representing, and being read by, an educational community. Just turn him away and tell him to start his own newsletter where he can publish all the meaningless garbage he wants. Or if your that concerned about his amendment rights, run the story then resign.

  16. For people who cannot read Sarah Jeglum’s original Letter from Editor (to which I was responding), here it is in entirety as published in The Daily:
    —-
    It’s the end of another quarter, which means it’s time again to reflect. As the first yearlong editor in chief, I started the quarter anxious about what this year might hold. For previous editors, this letter would typically be a farewell and a wish of good luck during finals. For me, this is a new beginning.

    The Daily staff, this campus and I have all grown this quarter. Challenges have come up in every sense, and we’ve met them to the best of our ability. I’ve watched my staff grow and have learned with them what exactly it means to be a student newspaper — to be the voice of a campus — and we’ve formed new ideas about how to better serve our community.

    You, our readers, have also been challenged. You’ve been challenged by what we’ve written. You’ve agreed and you’ve disagreed. But most importantly, you’re letting us know what you think, and we’re listening.

    In doing this, you’ve challenged me. You’ve challenged my ideas of journalism, its purpose, and the weight and meaning of free speech.

    This past week especially has been challenging for all of us. We’ve reflected on free speech, tolerance, inclusion and the importance of public discourse.

    Although today is our last day of publication for the quarter, it’s important to remember what we’ve learned and to move forward with these lessons.

    Here’s what I’ve learned:

    Free speech is for everyone. It’s not just for the majority, and it’s not just for the minority. It’s not just for people you agree with, and it’s not just for people you disagree with. It’s for you, and it’s for every person on this campus and in this community.

    On this campus, The Daily is the student voice — your voice. In the end, the only way we can hash out our differences is to voice our opinions, and consider and respond to the opinions of others. The role of a newspaper in all of this is to be a forum for that to happen.

    We can’t do this without you.

    So keep writing letters, calling, e-mailing, stopping by — even come apply to be on staff. With your active involvement, The Daily will continue to be a forum for all voices to be heard. With every new voice, the discussion will grow and will better represent the diversity of our campus.

    Good luck during finals, and have a good break.

  20. This post embodies everything wrong with Slog coverage. You find one story and latch on to it like a pit bull — in this case, the UW Daily editorial protests. (Look! A protest and rally! On a college campus! How interesting!)

    Meanwhile, you completely ignore huge news happening on the very same college campus! Have you no love for Sarkisian?

    Seattle’s Only Newspaper, my ass.

  21. “but it’s a problem that needs to be dealt with”

    Unlike ‘the gay’ which does not need to be dealt with in this town horrible journalism needs to be dealt with. When was the last time you heard about some gay guy going on a rampage hurting people for no other purpose than he’s gay? Never. When was the last time our media aided in destructive behavior? Within my lifetime, it’s time to pick the right fights.

  23. THE DAILY
    The site’s currently undergoing maintenance.
    Sorry about that. We should be back up within a few minutes. Either try again, or go back to the front page.

    I think all of our traffic brought their server to its knees.

  25. Yeah, every time I see Sarah Jeglum’s name I think of the conversation I had with her the day Fay’s article was published. My favorite excerpt:”ME:Would you like to be compared to someone who fucks sheep, Sarah? SARAH: Well, no. ME: Yeah, me either. SARAH:Um, thanks for your feedback!” Ick.

  26. @11
    Very good point. It is well within the bounds of editorial discretion for The Daily to refuse to publish this article. Free speech requires that the state not punish speech, it does not require a newspaper to hand its megaphone to whoever asks for it. I believe the editors of the Daily erred for all the reasons JG has described, but I believe that the University, being a state institution, made the right decision by not stepping in and forcing an editorial decision. That would be crossing the line into state censorship.

    In truth, John Fey is such a nut-job, that it is highly unlikely that his article actually persuaded anyone to agree with him. By far the largest impact of its publication were the well deserved embarrassment of the Daily, but the secondary impact may actually have helped the gay-rights cause. By revealing how absolutely despicable some of the thought patterns are of many in the anti-gay-marriage crowd, I suspect that this article may have pushed a few people who were on the fence about this issue into the pro-gay-rights column just by the shear repulsiveness of John Fey.

    So in that sense, the publication may not have been as bad as some say. It was still foolish for the Daily to hand a megaphone to this man and future editors might want to take a hint from this experience, but in the end, the university was right to not intervene. Better to let these issues be hashed out in the marketplace of ideas, and the whack-jobs and bad editors revealed for what they are rather than to have the nanny state protect them from our backlash.

  28. somebody hacked the python script at the Daily. or they forgot to bounds check it.

    but it was great seeing today’s letter from the UW President and so many people turning out.

    (mind you, crowds are like 500 times that for a music event)

  30. @25: It’s like she doesn’t get that editors can have opinions, too. If she agreed with his bullshit article, she should at least have the stones to be like “well, fuck you, I liked it and decided to print it.” Instead she hides behind “learning lessons” like it’s some ABC back to school special. Except she’s not learning a lesson, and she still won’t admit she’s wrong.

    At least in the future when she attempts to enter the professional field, this is what is going to come to haunt her. Maybe she can get a job editing the 700 Club newsletter or something.

  32. Come on. I can’t believe you guys have you knickers in such a twist over this. This is what college newspapers do to get readers. They publish totally over the top opinion pieces. At my college, they published an article by a black guy (at a very white school) saying that someone should go on a shooting rampage, killing only white people. They’re just trying to get attention, and you’re playing right into their hands.

  34. @32 My brother used to write articles like that for his high school newspaper. They were hilarious if you knew what he was doing.

    Unfortunately, they also helped get the paper so swamped with oversight (everything had to be read and approved by the principal – I think they even brought the board in at one point) that it ended up being a pretty poor paper.

  35. At my college, a student newspaper “courageously” took a full page ad from David Horowitz opposing reparations. They were protested and now the editor is a writer for The New York Times.

  36. i think yours should have been the only slog response to this article: fact-based, rational and specific. then we should have moved on to more pressing matters–oh, you know, the economy, the tense state of world affairs, the last-minute cheney/(bush) machinations, the police state we increasingly live in, etc. instead, this blog just wants to flog the same silly, stale ponies again and again. i’m losing patience. i wonder how many share my sentiment.

  38. ellarosa – does the multi issue idea seem too out of line

    I care about this and all the other things you mention

    so glad the queers at the U kicked back, yeah

    other campuses are not so lucky or prepared to kick some bigot ass – U admin will not soon forget this day

    the echo to get change at the U is not horizontal but vertical

  41. “somebody hacked the python script at the Daily. or they forgot to bounds check it.
    “

    Not hacked, but the database sever melted under the pressure of being linked to by Fark. It usually hides those error messages from the general public, but occasionally some leak out.

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