While I believe that Matt Zapotosky rightfully questioned and executed the publication of the Baker University Center suicide threat, I have to wonder if he, among other prominent campus figures, was really asking the right question. As The Post reported in a roughly six-by-two inch column, located adjacent to the suicide article (which continued onto another page), an Ohio University student was briefly abducted by four males in the evening of Feb. 7. Like many other students, I checked my e-mail and The Post's Web site on Feb. 8. I had received two e-mails from the University Communications and Marketing department, describing the day's earlier events at Baker, but nothing about the abduction. Now, three days later, the only publicity I have seen of the brief abduction is brief articles and crime notices, slapped upon dorm walls next to Dance or Die ads. Is our community and its leaders so enthralled with the misfortunes of one man that we are unable to recognize the potential danger to ourselves? In case readers are unaware, which is highly probable, the four men, who sexually assaulted and accosted the victim on West Green, got away. Personally, I'd much rather receive an e-mail or read-up on preventative assault techniques than beguile myself with a micro-Britney Spears-esque phenomena. Yes, it happened on our campus, yes, it is newsworthy
and, yes, it is very tragic. But is it really appropriate that it dominates our papers, conversations and mailboxes? I would say no. I do not blame The Post for its focus on the suicide attempt, and I do not blame the students; I blame people like Senior Director of University Communications and Marketing Sally Linder for not sending e-mails to students. Newspapers find difficulty in making hard news, like sexual harassment, appealing to its readers when its readers are sheltered from it in other media ' like mass e-mails.- 17
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