Roraig Finney's recent call for the rebirth of pamphleteering ("Read all about it," Oct. 8) presents some interesting ideas about public debate, media and media consumers. "For all the revolutionary impact of the Internet," Finney argues, "only The Cavalier Daily and The Declaration can truly steer the common conversation of the whole University."
Finney seems to think those publications are fine as far as they go, but they are too restricting. If those publications drive the discussion, then the discussion will be about only the things those publications want to discuss. So the University community needs more pamphleteering.
Some folks would say the modern version of pamphleteering - blogging - is much better than the old model because it is - or can be - a discussion among the writer and his readers. Blogs are fine, Finney says, but "a blog must be sought out and discovered by a large critical mass of students before it can truly become part of the University culture and the University debate."
With pamphlets at the same locations where students are accustomed to finding The Cavalier Daily and The Declaration, Finney wrote, "readers could then exercise the most basic form of editorial control: picking from a range worthy of being called a choice."
Pamphlets would do more than stimulate debate, Finney's argument goes; they would help University students master critical thinking: "The difficulty of weighing claims and arguments offered in extreme terms - the method Thomas Paine perfected - will teach students to critically approach all claims made by the media and to separate the essentials of an argument from its tone and phrasing."
Producing pamphlets would be cheaper and simpler than putting out a newspaper, but it would still take money. Finney has an answer for that, too. "From the University Democrats to the Burke Society and the Classical Liberal Roundtable, existing groups are ready and willing to take advantage of an available printing system that does not entail regular commitment. If these student groups wished to publish pamphlets, they could raise the costs of a small, cheap print run from their memberships."
While a sudden proliferation of pamphleteers might be a boon for local printers, a sudden proliferation of pamphlets might be a burden on the environment, with more dead trees at one end of the production cycle and more litter on Grounds at the other. But that is beside the point. Finney is trying to get at some way to overcome the "apathy and disengagement" bred by the limits inherent in having "the common conversation of the whole University" driven by two student-produced publications.
Frankly, I do not think The Cavalier Daily or The Declaration has a lot to do with breeding apathy and disengagement. I do not think they limit the common conversation of the whole University. I am not sure there is a common conversation. And I am sure that pamphleteering has the potential for all sorts of nasty side effects. I have a different idea: Use The Cavalier Daily.
Finney sees The Cavalier Daily limiting conversation by its very nature. In a sense, there is something to that. Newspapers choose which events to cover and which topics to discuss and by doing so influence not only the debate, but the topics debated. But those choices do not have to define the debate. Letters to the editor and guest columns are obvious avenues available to anyone who thinks the paper is overlooking or under-covering an issue. At the online version of the paper, there is a lot of opportunity to comment on articles and debate issues with other readers. At the national level, advocates of policy and activists for causes regularly write op-eds for prominent newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
The Cavalier Daily is the most prominent newspaper on Grounds. Submit a column. Tweet about it. Post it on Facebook. Link it to your blog, reach out in whatever 21st-century way you would like, but if you conduct the conversation through The Cavalier Daily, you will put it before a campus-wide audience - wider on the Web. Ten thousand copies of your writing will be printed and distributed for you, saving you all of the cost and most of the hassle of pamphleteering. Here is another radical idea: If you truly think The Cavalier Daily lacks knowledge of some issue or contacts with some group, join up. Maybe you can help the staff do a better job. The Cavalier Daily is a student-run organization, after all. If you are a student with the basic skills who is willing to learn and follow journalistic ethics and standards, you can join in.
And joining in - either by joining the staff or joining the conversation - is the surest way to improve that "common conversation of the whole University" Finney is worried about.
Tim Thornton is The Cavalier Daily's ombudsman. He can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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