Gazette made tough call based on key principles

Publication:The Gazette;

Date:Dec 23, 2004;

Section:Opinion;

Page Number:22

SEAN PAIGE Editorial page editor

    We on the editorial page appreciate Barry Fagin’s take on the issues. That’s why we give him space here every other week. His liberty-loving ideals generally fit in well with our own editorial philosophy. His arguments are usually well-reasoned and substantive.

    Unfortunately, although he’s entitled to his opinion, the adjacent column isn’t a shining example of these attributes.

    The “Freedom philosophy” reflected daily on these pages holds as its ideal the robust and unfettered exchange of ideas, from left to right, religious to secular, serious to silly. Freedom Communications, our parent company, and The Gazette also are private, for-profit businesses that sustain themselves and thousands of company associates with advertising revenues.

    As such, allowing an advertiser to include copies of the New Testament in Sunday’s newspaper was consistent with both our mission and our values, and is in no way the sellout Fagin suggests. If anyone has compromised high ideals in this debate, it’s Fagin.

    He acknowledges, but then promptly dismisses, the most salient points in his column. Fagin understands that we are a private, forprofit company. He concedes our right to sell space to willing advertisers. He notes that our subscribers have the opportunity to read or not read those advertisements, as they see fit. Then he dismisses all this as “yadda, yadda, yadda.”

    As believers in a free press and free expression; as merchants in the marketplace of ideas; as opponents of discrimination in all its forms; and as a profit-driven company —what else could we do but accept this promotion? The real betrayal of principles, the real hypocrisy, the real demonstration of bias would have been for The Gazette to have shunned this particular advertiser simply because it was promoting religious ideas or because the product might be thought controversial by some.

    The Gazette has the discretion to reject advertisements that don’t conform with common standards of decency. But that would have been a hard argument to make in this case.

    Admittedly, this is a relatively new way for the International Bible Society to get its word out. But it’s not unprecedented. Newspapers already have done it in Houston and Chattanooga, Tenn., and papers in other cities will probably follow suit, if they aren’t intimidated by the controversy.

    Today we see the proliferation of religiously themed television and radio broadcasts, print publications, Web sites, movies and popular music. Is a newspaper insert any more objectionable than any of these? We don’t think so.

    Thankfully, Americans enjoy the freedom to change the channel, turn the page, read or not to read. And no one who received a New Testament on Sunday was compelled to read it — any more than The Gazette can command readers to purchase or patronize whatever else is mentioned or advertised in our pages.

    Newspapers trade in ideas and messages. Religious ideas are among the most important there are. It’s up to readers — not us — to decide what messages they embrace or shun. And the vast majority of readers have no problem telling the difference between our editorials, news stories and print ads.

    As a college professor, Fagin surely understands that a paid advertisement in no way constitutes an endorsement, and that the news side of the paper functions separately from the business side (as this editorial page does from the news side). The professional journalists who work at The Gazette aren’t about to allow business decisions to cloud their judgment or color their reporting. It’s an insult for Fagin to suggest as much.

    The Gazette’s participation in this promotion is no more an endorsement of Christianity than an advertisement for a synagogue is an endorsement of Judaism, an advertisement for a mosque is an endorsement of Islam . . . or a Barry Fagin column is an endorsement of his views.

    A truly free press aims not at excluding, but at including as many views as possible, whether published free of charge in our opinion pages or appearing as paid advertisements. The Gazette would be no more inclined to silence someone advertising religion than it would be to silence Fagin.

    Write to Paige c/o The Gazette, P.O. Box 1779, Colorado Springs, 80901