Dan Kennedy

Professors as Information Censors

On a l’impression que le dessin est de moins en moins toléré, que c’est une forme d’expression qui, même au sein des médias, est encombrante. Un peu trop atypique, un peu trop libre…  Même dans les grands journaux, les dessins deviennent extrêmement consensuels, il n’y a pas beaucoup de prise de risque éditoriale, les dessins deviennent un peu insipides.  [You get the impression that cartooning has become less and less tolerated, that it’s a form of expression which, even in the heart of the media, is burdensome.  A bit too uncommon, a little too free…  Even in the big newspapers, cartoons have become extremely consensual, there’s not much editorial risk taking, the cartoons become a bit insipid.  —trans gts]

—Riss, editor of Charlie Hebdo

It is the fifth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonist massacre.  Are Northeastern University students aware of that?  As an alumnus of NU and out of respect for the murdered cartoonists, I request that the student editors of The Huntington News override the decision made by one of their professors, Dan Kennedy, to censor information.  Indeed, Professor Kennedy refused to circulate to his students a cartoon (see wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2020/01/democracy-under-siege.html), which I’d sketched satirizing The Boston Globe.  I’d sent it to the columnists depicted in the cartoon, as well as to the editor and several other journalists.  In a separate email, I’d also sent it to Professor Kennedy, who teaches in the School of Journalism.

To Professor Dan Kennedy, Northeastern University:

It is highly likely you will choose NOT to present the attached cartoon to your Northeastern University journalist students… and that would represent in a nutshell your problem as a professor of journalism.  Why not address it, instead of ignoring it?  

Professor Kennedy was the only one who responded.  For that, I praise him.  From my experience, The Boston Globe tends to ignore/censor hardcore criticism with its regard, something that clearly ought to be a focus for professors of journalism.  Professor Kennedy’s response was brief.

Hi, George —

I like the one of me and Renée Loth much better.

No, I won't be presenting it to my students. It's puerile.

DK

Apropos, the other cartoon, which Professor Kennedy refers to and also refused to circulate amongst his students can be examined here:  wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2020/01/renee-loth-and-dan-kennedy.html.  I just posted it.  “Oh, my God, this cartoon is fantastic,” had written the professor, but again he would not circulate it amongst his students.  In 2013, I’d posted a different cartoon again satirizing the professor, and again he would not circulate it amongst his students (see wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2013/07/rosanna-cavannah-and-dan-kennedy.html).  Moreover, last June I’d posted an “Open Letter to Northeastern University School of Journalism.”  Not one NU professor would circulate the letter to his or her students.  In fact, The Huntington News would not respond.  It can be examined here:  wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2019/06/northeastern-university-school-of.html.  

In any case, rather than issue a general kill-the-messenger message-killing epithet, “puerile,” why not instead contemplate precisely what points are made in the cartoon, then via reason and fact prove the points faulty.  That should be precisely what a professor and any thinking individual does.  But when one is bound by ideology and/or career connections, one tends NOT to do that.  Sadly, to dismiss a message that one does not like with a simple epithet has become a common practice today.  Hopefully, professors are not teaching and encouraging it.  

Was Professor Kennedy’s a worthy response?  Shouldn’t his students be able to make their own determinations?  Should professors serve as academic censors of information?  In essence, would the cartoon NOT encourage debate amongst students of journalism?  And isn’t vigorous debate a prime cornerstone of a thriving democracy, even at a school of journalism?  For a professor to dismiss the clear message in the cartoon as “puerile” is troubling.  

How perchance is it “puerile,” for example, to openly criticize a highly-biased newspaper’s refusal to publish anything highly critical of its editor?  How perchance is it “puerile” to quote the puerile statements of two of its columnists, while simultaneously presenting the newspaper’s latest self-vaunting focus, “Democracy Under Siege”?  Indeed, how does publishing such puerile columns like “Miss Conduct” and “Love Letters” serve to solve the democracy-under-siege problem evoked by the Boston Globe?  How does the latter’s rejection of hardcore criticism/satire like that presented in the cartoon solve the democracy-under-siege problem?  How is it possible that Professor Kennedy seems incapable of grasping these fundamental questions?   Might the Boston Globe constitute one of the hands feeding him?  Any careerist, academic or other, knows and obeys the basic career taboo:  thou shalt not bite the hands that feed.  

How is it “puerile” to criticize/satirize the Boston Globe as a likely contributor to the democracy-under-siege problem?  Might Professor Kennedy (like him or not is irrelevant!) also be a contributor to the problem?  If so, that would explain his dismissal of the satire as “puerile,” thus not worthy of his students’ attention.  Newspapers, like the Boston Globe, publish satirical cartoons, but not when the satire targets them.  With good-taste censors like Professor Kennedy in academic positions and Globe Editor McGrory in journalism positions, democracy will remain under siege.  In fact, one must wonder what Brian McGrory and his journalist colleagues think democracy is.  Do they think it is implementation of ideology, restriction of freedom of expression, and limited debate in accord with the parameters of their particular ideology?  

Finally, for several decades now, as a Northeastern alumnus, I have tried in vain to get the library directors at the university to subscribe (only $20/year) to The American Dissident, a 501c3 nonprofit journal devoted to literature, democracy and dissidence.   So, how can Northeastern, year after year, ask me to contribute money?  Well, instead, I will now contribute a free subscription, but only if the librarian in charge assures that issues will be placed on the shelf and not thrown into the garbage.  The cartoon in question will appear in the next issue of the journal due out in April.  If the librarian in charge accepts the offer, then Professor Kennedy’s students will be able to circumvent his censorship of information and make their own determinations as to the worthiness or unworthiness of that particular expression of freedom of speech.  And the same goes, if the student newspaper editor decides to publish it.  

The American Dissident, unlike the bulk of journals and newspapers, not only brooks tough criticism regarding it and its editor (me), but encourages and publishes the harshest received in each and every issue.  How sad that the Boston Globe rejects that modus operandi, de facto preferring “democracy under siege.”  How about The Huntington News?  Journalism constitutes a part of the democracy-under-siege problem in America.   If it continues to deny that fact, as it tends to do, how can that possibly help resolve the problem?  If student journalists continue in that darkness, how can that help resolve the problem?   In the realm of journalism, careerism and ideology, which ineluctably oppose truth and reason, constitute two of the prime culprits.  

Riss concludes (see above quote), “I think that free expression is in itself a sufficiently fundamental value, which has a future if cartoonists have the courage to inject into their drawings courage and strength.  If it’s only to present nice cartoons which upset nobody, they might as well not sketch at all.”  [« Je pense que la liberté d’expression est déjà une valeur fondamentale suffisante.  Ce genre a de l’avenir si les dessinateurs ont le courage de donner à leur dessin de la force. Si c’est juste pour faire de l’illustration et des dessins gentils qui ne dérangent personne, autant ne rien dessiner du tout » —trans gts]

In sincerity, again, I thank Professor Kennedy for responding… because from his brief criticism, I was inspired to write this essay.  Please, professors, avoid the epithets and embrace vigorous debate and freedom of expression, democracy’s cornerstones.