LETTER: Editor abused position for own political gain

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by Scott Ruthfield

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To the editor:

A column ("Recent activism sparked by elections") in the Feb. 9 issue of the Thresher greatly upset me.

A member of the Thresher staff wrote an opinion column that, I believe, reflected quite badly on both his personal ethical code and on the Thresher 's standards.

In his column, news editor George Hatoun attacked the Student Association and the Honor Council for taking actions that he believed were appropriately timed for re-election.

I believe that George is wrong on this, of course, and I would be happy to discuss that at length; however, that's not the issue I'm interested in now.

George was wrong in an entirely different, more disturbing way.

George Hatoun is running for SA president.

Of course, anybody running for any position is entitled to express his or her opinions on issues, and running for president shouldn't mean that George shouldn't talk about his opinions.

However, by using his position on the Thresher to deliver a spirited attack on the SA, he abused his role as a reporter to the campus and as a member of the Thresher staff.

The tradition in politics is that when a reporter gets involved in an election, he or she stops reporting on that election.

It's called a conflict of interest, and George has chosen to willfully ignore it. By using Thresher space to attack his opponents, he chose to flaunt it.

Perhaps the greatest irony comes at the end of his column, when George says that "my point is simply that we should realize that these activities are carefully timed and neither spontaneous nor coincidental."

Should we believe that his attack on the current SA was not exactly that?

George has reported on the SA all year, and if you look back at his previous columns, he has never been so virulent.

His sudden attack on the SA seems like no more than a non-spontaneous, non-coincidental political ploy.

You don't have to like the SA. Perhaps George really doesn't.

But his manipulative, error-laden column does no justice to anybody. His words are at best incredibly inappropriate and at worst outright unethical.

I'd be happy to discuss the errors with him or anybody else, but in truth, I don't think George believes most of what he says -- he's just hoping you'll believe it enough to carry him to the presidency.

That's where the manipulation comes in, and when that kind of mudslinging ends up coming from a news editor, it's just wrong.

Don't buy it.

Scott Ruthfield

Lovett '97

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the February 23, 1996 issue.

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