U.S.: Virginia Tech tries to gank funding from school paper over comments
- This is not an issue of freedom of the press. The concern is not the content per se, although some of it is alarming – homophobic and racist and so forth.
- Virginia Tech Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Spencer • Regarding the school’s push to take funding away from the school paper, The Collegiate Times, due to the fact that their site allows anonymous comments. Apparently, it breaks some stupid policy. While the paper has independence from the school, they do receive $70,000 yearly, along with free office space. In case you need a single reason why this is a bad idea, whatever the policy may be, we have a pretty good one: The paper’s excellent coverage of the school’s 2007 shooting. Student journalism needs to be protected. (hat tip Charles Apple) source