4A - Monday, March 28, 2011
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
E-MAIL DANIELAT DWGOLD gUMICII.EI)U
01
C Mis an Batly
Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
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DANIEL GOLD
STEPHANIE STEINBERG
EDITOR IN CHIEF
MICHELLE DEWITT
and EMILY ORLEY
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
Michele Bachmann throws her hat into
the ring for president in 2012.
The price of quality news
KYLE SWANSON
MANAGING EDITOR
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
A justified intervention
The U.N. was correct to take action in Libya
For the third time since 2001, the United States is using
military force against a country in the Middle East. But unlike
our decision to invade Iraq, which was condemned by the
international community, the Libyan intervention has the support
of the United Nations and is being led by a coalition of nations,
not all of whom are traditional allies of the U.S. Most importantly,
this operation is a limited one. Though there's a lot of uncertainty
moving forward, there's already been a victory for freedom and the
international community.
On March 17, the United Nations Security
Council authorized member states to "take all
necessary measures" to protect Libyan civil-
ians under attack by forces loyal to Libya's
leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi. Libya has been
rocked by conflict since February, when Gad-
dafi ordered his military to attack pro-democ-
racy demonstrators, killing hundreds and
sparking armed revolts across the country. On
March 19, a multinational coalition began air-
strikes against targets in Libya. This was the
first step in enforcing a no-fly zone intended
to protect Libyan civilians from the dictator,
whose son has threatened "rivers of blood"
if the rebellion isn't quelled. France, Britain,
Italy, Canada, Denmark, Qatar and the United
Arab Emirates have all contributed to the mil-
itary response currently being led by the U.S.
Intervention in Libya was the right choice.
Gaddafi is a violent dictator who has used
his military - largely composed of foreign
mercenaries - to kill hundreds of civilians.
As pro-democracy protests have swept the
Middle East, only Gaddafi has responded with
extreme violence. The choice of the United
Nations to allow intervention will save thou-
sands of lives and give international support
for the right of people everywhere to choose
their own government. Too often, the inter-
national community stands idly by while dic-
tators like Gaddafi massacre the people they
rule. The international response in Libya sets
a precedent of not tolerating extreme violence
against civilians.
The military action in Libya is a victory for
international law. France, Britain and the U.S.
admirably resisted calls to act unilaterally by
waiting for U.N. approval before beginning
strikes. The events of the past month prove
that the international community is able and
willing to protect civilians. After Libya, it will
be harder for those who doubt international
resolve to demand that the U.S., or any other
country, act alone. This military operation
proves wrong those who believe that com-
bined international solutions never work.
War is unpredictable. The crash of a U.S.
fighter jet in Libya last week underscores just
how easily the situation could change. Presi-
dent Barack Obama has repeatedly stated that
the U.S. will not conduct a land invasion of
Libya. Hopefully the president is committed
to that policy, but unforeseen circumstances
might lead him to widen the war, a choice
that could prove costly for the country. The
intervention in Libya is justified as long as it
is limited in scope and has the support of the
international community.
The words I write here are
free. Whether you picked
up The Michigan Daily
somewhere on
campus or you
clicked to my
column on the ;
Daily website,
you get a taste
of my immense
wisdom for free.
And I consider
myself a talent- IMRAN
ed writer and SYED
thinker. Lucky
you.
I have a friend. She works for The
New York Times, and as of today,
her words are no longer free. She's
smart, talented and a very good
journalist, but to echo the words
of all those people who are decry-
ing the imposition of the Times's
paywall, I ask one simple question:
Why would you pay for her words
when you can have mine for free?
The answer is simple, of course,
but allow me to illustrate. I begin by
quoting almost verbatim an online
conversation I had with this friend
of mine last week:
Friend: So The Times paywall
goes up soon.
me: really? too bad
Friend: No, this is good for those
of us who make money over here in
the newspaper business...
me: whatever
Friend: It's really not a bad deal.
me: I'm sure huffpo will summa-
rize it all for me
Friend: You get the first 20 arti-
cles a month free, and then you can
pay for a pretty cheap subscription.
Also, if you enter the site through
a link elsewhere, you won't be
bumped, even if you meet the 20
story minimum.
me: Daily Beast is still free? then
i'm set
Friend: You're the worst journal-
ist ever.
me: um, duh. so i gotta pay to see
the caucus blog too?
Friend: Yes, I believe so.
me: psh, screw that. you should
transfer. maybe drudge report?
Friend: I'm not dignifying this
with a response.
me: be cool now. just because
your profession is dying doesn't
mean you can be angry with me
Friend: My profession isn't dying.
me: DEAD
Facetiousness aside, my friend
is right, of course. The New York
Times should get money for the
reporting its journalists do. Good
reporting entails many costs of pro-
duction. And while I like to think
I occasionally have great insights
on national and international
issues, I'm among the large group
of secondary producers of journal-
ism - those who borrow the facts
uncovered by national news orga-
nizations like the Times and use
that as the basis of their own writ-
ing and contributions. (I don't mean
to disparage the work of the Daily's
own reporters, who do an excel-
lent job of gathering their own facts
about local issues. I speak here only
of myself.)
I borrowed my friend's words to
literally fill my column this time to
prove a point: We borrow wisdom
from the real journalists all the
time. Whether its amateur colum-
nists like me or the professional
copy-and-pasters at news aggrega-
tion sites like The Drudge Report or
The Huffington Post, we depend on
others to do the digging for us and
then neatly package and present it
to our own readers for free.
For all the talk of the death of
newspapers in the digital age, it's
importantto never forgetone thing:
Secondary producers of news -
those blogs and quick-hit news sites
we all browse - are not self-sus-
taining. If real news organizations
like the Times disappeared, The
Drudge Report would have nothing
to report. And I could sit here and
guess how that whole Japan thing
is going down, but without the
reports of the journalists actually
on the ground, I wouldn't have any
actual facts to work with.
Good reporting
entails many
production costs.
So let's all pipe down about the
Times's paywall, OK? Like books,
CDs, movies, etc., real journalism
is a created product that involves
costs of labor, time and insight. The
Times isn't the first organization to
institute a paywall, and it certainly
won't be the last. Soon, once other
major publications are no longer
free, readers will have a simple
choice: Either pay the nominal sub-
scription fee to get real news, or
be content with borrowed wisdom
from the likes of me.
.And I recommend that you pay
the fee and stick with the profes-
sionals because, with that paywall
up, who knows where the hell I'll be
getting my facts.
-Imran Syed can be reached
at galad@umich.edu.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS:
Aida Ali, Will Butler, Ellie Chessen, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Melanie Kruvelis,
Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Harsha Panduranga,
Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb Asa Smith, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner
MARY BIRKETT AND EWAN COMPTON I
State bill shouldn't copy Arizona
SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@MICHIGANDAILY.COM
'Grading Gap' article read
more like a tabloid than news
TO THE DAILY:
I must say that I enjoy following The Michi-
gan Daily from afar. While Iwas an undergrad
at the University studying in South America
and North Africa, and while currently liv-
ing and working in the Middle East, I fondly
look toward the Daily as a window into my
salad days in Ann Arbor. However, I was quite
frustrated and worried by your article (The
Grading Gap:Analyzing the disparities in grade
distributions, 3/22/2011).
I understand the need for catchy titles and
subjects that capture the attention of the stu-
dent body. However, it's important that the
Daily doesn't lead the reader or act as a tabloid.
It's clear that in "The Grading Gap" the inten-
tion was one of "Hey reader, come see the hard
hitting truth about grades at Michigan!" The
article claimed to show which majors were
"easiest" and "hardest." However, from the
outset, this was flawed. The article and graph-
ics (which I believe were added later on the
website after publishing) claim that the crite-
ria for "hard and easy" was based on average
GPA of a major. This is inherently incorrect,
and the article itself acknowledges this when
the writer states "But grades aren't always an
indicator of the ease or difficulty of a class."
The article continuously stumbles over itself,
caught between the tabloid-esque vision of
outing the "easiest" courses and acknowl-
edging the truth: The difficulty of a course or
major is not solely linked to the average GPA of
it's students, and there are much greater vari-
ables at play.
This article had great potential. It is a fan-
tastic idea to explore which classes and majors
are the easiest. This would have made for a
great piece of research and journalism. Yet,
this would have taken work. The writer, or
team of journalists, would have had to delve
deeper into investigating course loads, time
spent on course work on average, relevance
of a class to the participant's major, average
grades for similar majors at various universi-
ties, etc. Additionally, I believe it would have
been of interest to many students to discuss
the "difficulty," even if solely based on aver-
age GPAs, of popular majors such as political
science, English, anthropology, history and
a wide array of LSA departments. While this
would have been the proper way to go about
creating a well crafted and thoughtful article,
the type that the Daily and it's numerous Pulit-
zer Prize-winning alumni are known for, it
appears that the paper took the "easy" way out.
I am no writer. In fact my grasp of the
English language is loosening every day. I
never worked on the Daily staff, and I gradu-
ated with a GPA that, accordingto this article,
would either make my major extremely hard
or make me somewhat of an underachiever (I
don't know which is true). However, I do have
great pride and respect for an institution such
as the Daily, and I view it as an important and
tangible symbol of the University at large.
For these reasons, I hope that the editors and
journalists who allowed this piece to go to
publishing will take more care to represent
themselves, the University, the students and
the Daily in a way that fits with it's great his-
tory and future.
Gabriel Luis Manga
University alum
On Feb. 26, state Rep. Dave Agema (R-Grandville)
introduced a bill that will undermine future prospects
for Michigan's next generation. Nearly identical to
Arizona's notorious immigration law, House Bill 4305
threatens to undercut Michigan's economic recovery by
imposing enforcement requirements that will bog down
our courts and law enforcement in frivolous lawsuits,
harm businesses by deterring legal immigration and do
little to combat illegal immigration, much less address
the state's more pressing issues. Michigan youth deserve
a better future than the one created by this unnecessary
and potentially unconstitutional bill.
Like Arizona's bill, HB 4305 obligates law enforce-
ment to verify the legal status of anyone who "should
reasonably be suspected of being unlawfully present
in the United States." Officers can also arrest "with or
without a warrant" anyone they think has committed
a crime that could result in their deportation. Finally,
the bill would allow residents to file lawsuits against
enforcement agencies for not implementing the law "to
the full extent permitted."
This will have critically negative implications for
Michigan's economy and its level of public safety. When
Arizona passed its immigration bill, it directly cost them
more than $250 million in boycotts and lost tax income
from immigrants who left after the bill's adoption, not to
mention the millions it is expected to waste on frivolous
lawsuits. In Arizona, the bill has cemented a reputation.
for reactionary politics .that hurt the state's economy
and significantly lowered consumption by driving away
immigrants who seek a more welcoming state.
Michigan is already struggling economically, and
given its dependence on immigrant businesses, it is
as susceptible to economic problems created by anti-
immigrant legislation as Arizona. Even Gov. Rick Sny-
der rightly said in his State of the State address that
attracting immigrants is crucial to Michigan's econom-
ic recovery: "Immigration made us a great state and
country," he stated. Passing this bill would be a huge
deterrent to future legal immigration and would ulti-
mately hurt business in Michigan. The state is already
faced with the problem of a "brain drain" and an aging
labor force. This bill would likely exacerbate these
problems by associating Michigan with regressive poli-
cies that college-educated youth do not support and by
driving away immigrant businesses that could create
key jobs.
Studies also demonstrate that similar city bills have
decreased public safety and put additional strain on
police forces. Burdening already over-extended state
police with the additional task of enforcing federal
immigration law only prevents them from performing
what is part of their job description: keeping communi-
ties safe. Giving individuals the right to sue police for
insufficiently enforcing immigration law leaves police
departments in a double-bind: If they enforce the law
they will likely be sued for profiling, but not enforcing
the law also leaves them vulnerable to lawsuits. This is
why police across the country have opposed the unfair
burden that bills like this place on law enforcement.
Austin, Texas Police Chief Art Acevedo commented that
similar immigration bill SB 1070 "will reverse the gains
made through long-term efforts to create an environ-
ment of trust between the migrant community and law
enforcement... (it) will undoubtedly further exacerbate
an atmosphere of fear and mistrust."
Even worse, this legislation will not effectively
address the issue of undocumented immigration at the
expense of hard-working Michigan citizens, immi-
grants and youth. To begin with, there are far fewer
undocumented immigrants here than in Arizona.
According to Federation for American Immigration
Reform data from 2008, about 7.5 percent of Arizona's
population is undocumented, while Michigan's is 2 per-
cent. Additionally, policy studies have demonstrated
that the "enforcement by attrition" approach to immi-
gration has negligible, if any, affect on undocumented
immigration rates. Thus, this bill threatens to waste
millions of dollars on increased lawsuits, create more
stress for law enforcement agencies, generate losses in
tax revenue from businesses and individuals who leave
and endanger the civil rights of American citizens and
documented immigrants without solving the issue it
claims to address. That means there is no justification
for the families torn apart every day by deportations, the
fear in immigrant communities from increased polic-
ing, the citizens denied jobs or the youth who inherit the
terrible consequences of this bill. This is unjust and an
ill-thought policy, plain and simple.
Michigan has many difficult problems to deal with,
not the least of which include its economic recession
and declining labor force. We deserve serious answers
to these problems. When this governor and legislators
came into office, they promised to deliver solutions. This
bill isn't a serious answer. It scapegoats immigrants and
exacerbates our state's real problems by hurting busi-
ness, increasing the "brain drain" and distracting law
enforcement officials from their job. We deserve state
politicians who work for a better future, not ones who
undermine it with unwise and unfair legislation like
House Bill 4305.
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300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. We do
not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Mary Birkett is an LSA junior Ewan
Compton is an LSA senior.
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