Update: How the ‘God Hates Fags’ group’s college talks went
I wrote a few weeks ago about Westboro Baptist Church representatives being booked to talk to journalism classes at Central Michigan University.
So how did that go?
Westboro Baptist Church protester (earlier event)
“The Westboro presentation became contentious and occasionally degenerated into a shouting match and dueling Bible verses, but overall it went well,” CMU journalism professor Tim Boudreau tells Romenesko readers. “The church members spoke their minds, but my students also exercised their rights to question, challenge, debate and condemn.”
Boudreau, who invited the so-called “God Hates Fags” group into his classrooms, writes in an email:
The WBC visitors illustrated nicely that folks who test the limits of free expression are sometimes prickly, abrasive and unpopular. They’re not always heroes in the traditional sense.
I doubt they won over any disciples during their visit. In fact, several students said they were even more hostile to the group after hearing them refer to mainstream churches as “whorehouses” and to all priests as pedophiles. And while some students said Westboro’s speech goes too far and should be restricted, most reluctantly agreed that it still deserves First Amendment protection.
They talked knowledgeably about things we had discussed in class, such as time, place and manner restrictions. They also argued persuasively that no matter how, when or where they delivered their message, people would still condemn them because of its content. However hateful and wrong-headed they might be, they appear to be sincere in their beliefs.
We had about a dozen protesters outside the auditorium, but there were no incidents. This was the only day of the semester when I actually had to turn people away from class.
Some students debated our guests one-on-one after the presentations, and still others treated them like rock stars, taking their pictures with them. An atheist student asked Shirley [Phelps-Roper] to autograph his Bible (she signed his law text instead), and another had her autograph his Village People album. You might see that on eBay soon.
* “Most hated family in America” returns to Central Michigan University
* Students react harshly to rhetoric of Westboro Baptist Church
* Video and audio “may contain content that is inappropriate or offensive”
And what did students “learn” from such a stunt? Oh, to give coverage to flat-worlders and other lunatics, including clearly odious nutcase hate groups, in the interest of “balance.”
I vehemently disagree with you, JtT.
These students learned that even though they may strongly disagree with someone they may be interviewing, they can learn and understand what those people believe without having to agree with them. They also (hopefully) learned something about how to impartially and professionally question people with views they may personally find distasteful.
That’s what good reporters should — and must — do. Just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean you can’t cover a story or relate an interviewee’s views without exploiting your biases or theirs. You seem to feel that’s somehow not responsible reporting, that instead it’s more important to stifle anyone you don’t personally agree with. Because going against YOUR interests is not in the public interest.
You flatter yourself. If that’s really your view, you should stay out of the news business.
“still others treated them like rock stars, taking their pictures with them.”
No surprise there. You stay classy, CMU!
CMU has long been one of the bigger jokes of the journalism world. A group of 10-year-old bloggers could outperform most CMU grads.
This is what “students” “learn” at “journalism” “schools.”
Scare quotes intentional. If you are a student worried generally about employability — how does sitting through hours of this nonsense help at all? If seeing nuts like this is really that important, I guarantee you Topeka has cheap hotels and restaurants and you can study them at length.
Journalism school is a waste of time!!!
Is that a guy or a girl holding that sign?. . .
Journalism runs on the premise Dr. Sagan so eloquently made: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
That WBC thinks something is completely irrelevant. Where is their evidence? All I see is one more group of shrill hysterics who present a superstition as though it were fact and who demand, DEMAND!!!1!, that we all go along with their delusion.
We read Homer (some of us, at least) and have no trouble calling it myth when all these ancient Greeks talk about their gods and goddesses. We get an equally unbelievable story about a superbeing living in the clouds with a long white beard and for some reason regard it as, somehow, deserving respect and special status.
Until WBC actually gets God Almighty to show up, they (like every religion in the world) are entitled to no exclusion from Sagan’s — and journalism’s — key requirement.
Mr. Boudreau should know that. Or be able to deduce it. That he doesn’t serves as one more reason why I am glad I got out of journalism.