EDITORIAL: "The Silent Fling?"

Do Spring FlingDo Spring Flingplanners want studentDo Spring Flingplanners want studentinput? Or do they justDo Spring Flingplanners want studentinput? Or do they justwant to conceal it?Do Spring Flingplanners want studentinput? Or do they justwant to conceal it?_________________________ The ad featured a cartoon, with people in four different cartoon panels enthusiastically talking about a fictional Fling. "Last year's Spring Fling was the best weekend of the year!" effuses one cartoon character. "The music was awesome!" says another. "The events appealed to diverse groups!" exclaims a third, and "I thought the T-shirt design was great!" says the fourth. The cartoon was followed by this kicker: "If you feel any or all of these statements are inaccurate, please share your views with the 1993 Fling Directors?" It then listed the date, time and place of the Monday evening meeting in Vance Hall. Of course, it would be wonderful if students on campus echoed the sentiments of the cartoon characters after this year's Spring Fling. We're also glad students attended the meeting to help bring that about. But we can't help but wonder whether the advertisement for the forum actually drove some students away. On the surface, the ad appeared to encourage student attendance at the forum. Fling planners also publicized the event for the entire week leading up to the event. But the text of the ad probably should have read, "Come to the meeting and help Fling planners make these statements a reality." For example, it's not just that people may not like the T-shirt design. It's also that SPEC seems to abuse its power to quash the sale of alternative T-shirts. It's not just whether the events appealed to diverse groups. It's whether diverse groups were incorporated into the higher-level decision making, regardless of which students are in charge of Fling. But two other things are apparent about the ad. First, it said nothing about whether the Fling directors were actually interested in student input. And second, it also neglected to say whether Fling directors were willing to improve planning to accommodate critics' concerns. The way the ad read, the Fling directors may simply feel that it's their obligation to listen to students whine, and then go on planning Fling just the same as before. We hope Fling planners will carefully consider the points raised Monday evening, and are genuinely interested in hearing from students and publicizing efforts to improve Fling. · Unfortunately, the behavior of the organizers at Monday's meeting suggested that Fling planners were not at all interested in publicizing the Fling debate. Going "off-the-record" is utter nonsense at any event open to the public. You can't invite everyone in the world to your event and then exclude the DP. It just doesn't work that way. Besides, it makes us wonder what they have to hide. Are they trying to conceal something from their fellow students, the people who attend Fling? Going "off-the-record" is a standard journalistic convention, allowing people to discuss issues with a reporter more candidly than they might otherwise. When someone goes "off-the-record" for a short period of time, they no longer have to worry whether what they say will appear in the paper, attributed to them. We want to stress that we strictly adhere to the "off-the-record" convention when it applies, which is only in a private setting. But you can't stand in front of a room-full of random people and tell the one reporter in the back of the room, "Don't quote me on this." If an event is open to the general public, it is open to the press. It is fair game for us to quote speakers and report on the proceedings anyway we darn well please, and we are under no obligation to read our notes or our stories back to our sources before they are printed. We may do so if asked, though. Fling planners tried to bend the rules to avoid public criticism of Fling -- and this editorial is what they get for it. As students leaders who have dealt with the DP before, they should have known better -- or at least asked us. If something controversial had happened at that forum, you can bet we would have quoted them regardless of what they said about "off-the-record." And if something interesting had happened at their little event, the story might have appeared on the front page. But since nothing did -- and they tried to gag us -- we dumped 'em on page 11.

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