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. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com 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. 01 0 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be fewer than 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. A