300 at CSU urge firing of editor

Student says paper dropped F-bomb to spark dialogue

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 25, 2007 at midnight

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FORT COLLINS - The student newspaper that stirred up a hornet's nest when it dropped the F-bomb last week drew more fire Monday.

It also sparked thoughtful debate.

College Republicans at Colorado State University collected more than 300 signatures calling on CSU's Board of Student Communications to fire Editor in Chief David McSwane.

"It was very unprofessional," College Republicans chairwoman Chelsey Penoyer said at a tent her group had set up next to the Lory Student Center.

"The nation is looking at us as a bunch of uneducated children. It reflects horribly on CSU."

But senior journalism major Rachael Martin defended the paper. "I agree that he didn't need to use the f-word," said Martin, who described herself as a Republican.

"But look at what it's done. It's had college students all around the nation talking about freedom of speech for the first time. By no means should he be fired."

What got it all started

On Friday, The Rocky Mountain Collegian ran a four-word editorial that read: "Taser this . . . F--- Bush." National radio talk shows, CNN and MSNBC have since buzzed with debate about free-speech rights and the bounds of propriety.

The profane editorial was a response to last week's Tasering of a University of Florida student who disrupted a forum with Sen. John Kerry.

At the center of the firestorm is McSwane.

Asked by CNN if the editorial could be characterized as vulgar or sophomoric, McSwane said he "wouldn't entirely disagree."

"We wanted people to understand that free speech is something we should talk about," he told CNN. "We felt that this campus, for one reason or another, has been really apathetic. Too quiet. We felt that the best way to spark that dialogue was to exercise it ourselves."

McSwane will get a chance to defend himself again Wednesday evening before CSU's Board of Student Communications.

His staff wasn't entirely supportive Monday. Thomas Andrews, a senior music performance major, said he was laid off from The Collegian on Monday because the newspaper had lost about $30,000 of advertising revenues from businesses that didn't like the editorial.

"I find it embarrassing that the paper says it's the student voice of Colorado State University," said Andrews, who is a blogger for the paper and who said he and all other 'non-essential' employees were laid off.

"That they have to resort to bumper-sticker trash for an editorial piece is really disgusting."

Most of those offended by the profanity said it wasn't so much a matter of free speech as a matter of the newspaper showing poor judgment and immaturity.

"The word is disrespectful and should never be used with the president's name," said Cody Bart-lett, a junior agriculture business major.

'Uncivilized'

"I'm not going to say I've never used that word," senior history major Greg Wilson said. "But I try to limit its use. It's uncivilized."

Holly Loucks, a sophomore Republican, said, "The Collegian has been so biased. Endorsing same-sex marriage, legalization of marijuana - it's ridiculous."

"I've tried to understand where they're coming from, but I just don't get it. It's like, 'Hello? Are you dead in there?' "

Students who supported the newspaper's right to use the word said the vulgarity can be forgiven.

Graduate biochemistry student Kristopher Hite noted that in 2004 Vice President Dick Cheney aimed the F-word at U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on the Senate floor.

"Should the rest of us be held to any higher standard?

"This has promoted more discussion than any other editorial," said Hite, who sported a T-shirt with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt about the importance of being able to criticize the president.

"If they had used an F and some asterisks, it wouldn't have promoted the same kind of discussion. You can't always use kid gloves."

Earlier attention

McSwane had made national news before, Hite noted. As a senior at Arvada High School, -McSwane posed as a pot-smoking dropout trying to enlist in the Army for an investigative story on unethical recruitment practices. He taped conversations with a recruiter who encouraged him to manufacture a high school diploma and buy a detox kit to lick his drug habit

"My best friend is about to go to Iraq, and he told me a recruiter tried the same thing with him," Hite said.

"Sometimes it takes a person like McSwane to put important issues right in people's faces, rather than pretending everything is fine."

In an editorial Monday, the Collegian said it didn't disagree that that the Friday editorial was "immature, unnecessary and offensive."

But it then said that editorials had been bashing Bush all year, but that no one seemed to notice until the profanity appeared in large letters on Friday. "It's interesting and scary that the use of the F-word garners more attention than an intelligent, well-researched editorial."

The editorial said the risky path was taken to tell readers that college students "should wake up and start asking questions, demanding answers and challenging norms."

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729

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