4A - Monday, September 12, 2011

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

be 1id ian &a*Ij
Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com

From the public editor

STEPHANIE STEINBERG
EDITOR IN CHIEF

MICHELLE DEWITT
and EMILY ORLEY
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

NICK SPAR
MANAGING EDITOR

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solelythe views of their authors.
FR OM THME D AI!LY
Patrolling our money
City and 'U' need to share traffic fiscal burden
While many students are unaware of the boundaries
between campus and the city of Ann Arbor, the city is
all too aware of the burden - primarily financial - it
bears as a result of proximity to the University. With that econom-
ic strain in mind, the Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution
requiring the University to reimburse the city for traffic services
provided for special events, like football game days.

This piece marks the return
of the public editor column
to The Michigan Daily's
editorial page after a more than
three-year hiatus.
For readers with thoughts on
the Daily's special Sept. 11 issue, its
use of anony-
mous sources IMRAN
and writers SMEA
in last week's SYED
Statement cover Public Editor
story or any-
thing else this
paper has done, there's now an
additional outlet for constructive
criticism.
A public editor - the readers'
representative within the editorial
core of the newspaper - serves a
crucial role, especially for a cam-
pus newspaper, which undergoes
massive staff turnover on a regular
basis. I am honored to serve as the
Daily's second-ever public editor.
While I will have no say in pri-
mary editorial decisions or articles
before they are printed, it will be
my job to read each day's paper
and the feedback we receive from
readers. I will evaluate concerns
that are raised (either publicly or
privately), discuss them as needed
with the Daily's staff and write
bi-weekly columns addressing the
more important issues.
A public editor obviously cannot
fulfill his role without input from
readers. It is my hope with this
first column to open up a dialogue
between myself and the average
student reader of this paper. There
is no opinion too trivial or criti-
cal to forward to the public edi-
tor, though I encourage readers to
point out positive things as well.
Believe me, we can learn from
commendation as much as we can
from our mistakes.
When the Daily first created
the public editor position in 2007,

most readers didn't know what a
public editor was, and those who
did, probably dismissed the Dai-
ly's action as yet another attempt
to imitate The New York Times.
To some extent, the latter group
was right. Much like the Times
appointed Daniel Okrent (himself
a Daily alum) as its first public edi-
tor in 2003 following the embar-
rassing Jayson Blair plagiarism
scandal, the Daily also created the
public editor position out of neces-
sity.
I was the Daily's editorial page
editor when we undertook the pub-
lic editor experiment in 2007. We
created the position in response to
a need at the Daily that we were
told by critics - among them Uni-
versity President Mary Sue Cole-
man - had to be filled. While the
Daily thankfully never encoun-
tered a disaster like the Blair
scandal, there were little mistakes
being made every day, and a pub-
lic editor would help us notice and
account for them.
As I take up this post, I especial-
ly commend the Daily's current set
of editors for taking the initiative
to once again open the paper up to
official criticism by renewing the
public editor experiment. I know
from experience that Daily staffers
are often subjected to completely
unfair criticism. But I don't deny
that there are legitimate mistakes
being made as well. It will be my
aim to highlight such problems
and possible solutions.
In addition to serving as the
Daily's public reditor, I will be
employed as a staff attorney and
teaching fellow in the University
Law School's Innocence Clinic.
While that technically makes me ,
a University employee, readers
should rest assured that my actions
as public editor will in no way be
influenced by the University.

Indeed, the University administra-
tion has been one of the strongest
voices calling for an independent
public editor at the Daily - and
I'm sure you agree that President
Coleman has far more important
things to do than to commandeer
the Daily's public editor.
I believe a successful public
editor should be close enough to
the publication to understand
the challenges writers and edi-
tors face each day, yet far enough
away to feel comfortable throwing
punches. I think I meet this crite-
ria: I wrote for the Daily in many
capacities, but it has been nearly
four years since I was an editor or
played any role in the paper's deci-
sion making.
Today when I walk into the
newsroom, I recognize almost no
one. Yet, because I spent many
years in that very room, I can
understand what every staffer
does as well as account for the
pressures student journalists face
as they balance classes and the
Daily - which can itself be a full-
time job.
I'm acutely aware of what an
immense task it is to put outa stu-
dent newspaper five nights a week.
I also understand that there is
room for improvement in how the
Daily does it. With your help and
feedback, I hope to play a small
part in making this paper better
than it has ever been.
Please don't hesitate to write
letters to the editor, or to contact
me directly.
-The public editor is an independent
critic of the Daily, and neither the editorial
board nor the editor in chief exercise
controlover the contents of his columns.
The opinions expressed do not necessarily
constitute the opinion of the Daily.
Imran Syed can be reached at
publiceditor@michigandaily.com

As part of the agreement, the city will
reduce the amount of traffic control it provides
for football games, focusing mostly on the
intersection of Main Street and Stadium Bou-
levard before games begin. Other areas will be
neglected by traffic control and likely result
in more traffic congestion on campus streets.
Since these changes were not put into effect
for Saturday's game against Notre Dame, the
University will be required to reimburse the
city for traffic services rendered.
The city's reaction is understandable con-
sidering the chaos of game day traffic that
involves both vehicles and pedestrians. It
takes a great deal of manpower and organi-
zation to keep the process efficient and safe,
and the city should not be alone in this task.
However, City Council's resolution implies
that game days are primarily the business of
the University, and that doesn't provide the
full picture.
Football Saturdays bring thousands of peo-
ple to Ann Arbor and create revenue for both
the city and surrounding businesses. Res-
taurants and shops benefit from the increase
of foot traffic and business from out-of-town
shoppers, and the city accumulates money
from traffic tickets as well as other citations
that are issued throughout a Football Satur-
day. While football games and other special

events on campus are undoubtedly University
events, it's impossible to completely separate
them from the city of Ann Arbor since both
parties share the benefits.
In response to the resolution, the city and
the University need to learn to cooperate by
sharing resources. The process of bringing
more than 100,000 people into the Big House
several days throughout the fall semester
cannot, and should not, be properly managed
by the University or the city independently.
Instead, both parties should work together to
ensure that each is contributing proportion-
ally to gain the benefits.
It is crucial that in response to these chang-
es in traffic services by the city, campus does
not become unreasonably jammed and impass-
able on game days. The University needs to
respond accordingly to make sure visitors to
campus, as well as residents, can safely and
easily travel in the Ann Arbor area. Areas that
are losing traffic patrol, like the State Street
areas near Briarwood and Eisenhower Boule-
vard, should be monitored this coming Satur-
dayto evaluate how much patrol is necessary.
Game days involve the entire Ann Arbor
community, and efforts need to be taken by
both the city and the University to allow Foot-
ball Saturdays to continue to be safe and effi-
cient for residents, students and visitors.

Coach (Hecklinski) always says, 'Big players make
big time plays; and that's what I did today:'
- Junior wide receiver Roy Roundtree said about his game-winning
touchdown at a post-game press conference on Saturday.
SETH SODERBORG|
What should America look like?


EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS:
Aida Ali, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Patrick Maillet,
Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley,
Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner

LET TERS TO T1H EDIR SEND LETTERS TO: TOTHEDAILY@MICHIGANDAILY.COM

MSA president remembers
campus reaction to 9 11
TO THE DAILY:
As I was sitting here in my office this
morning, the day before I head down to Ann
Arbor for Michigan v. Notre Dame Under
the Lights, I was forwarded a link to your
front page, on which was a picture of a few
of my closest friends from my days in Ann
Arbor (some of whom are also returning this
weekend). The picture was from the student
vigil we held on the Diag the night of the 9/11
attacks, now 10 years ago.
I still remember that day like it was yes-
terday. As the Michigan Student Assembly
president at the time, I woke up preparing to
chair my firstmeeting of the year, and instead
spent the day running from meeting to meet-
ing, working with the University on setting
up counseling centers and class cancellation,
and then working with my friends on the

assembly to decide to hold that vigil and then
organize it in the span of a few hours.
My friends' faces say it all - the pain you
can see Andrew actually feeling, the concern
and uncertainty that Jessica had for what
this all meant and the resolve to do whatever
was going to be asked by Mike. None of us
really knew what that day had meant at the
time, but we had more than 20,000 people
together that night just to be together to
feel together, and to begin to move forward
together. We didn't come that night calling
for retribution, or calling for absolution - we
came together purely for the sake of remind-
ing each other that we are all collectively one
and here for each other as a community at
Michigan. I have never talked to anyone who
was there that night who didn't feel the same
way, and my trust in our future as a nation
continues to be founded largely in moments
like that.
Matt Nolan
2001 Michigan Student Assembly president

What result do you want to create? What will you
do to make that result happen? My boss asks ques-
tions like these when he runs leadership seminars. As
we mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks,
we ought to ask ourselves the same questions. We will
respond to the attacks' troubling legacy in many ways.
Some voices will loudly proclaim America's greatness;
a few of these will say that those who do not talk as
they do are not patriots. Many of us will remember the
surprise, shock, anger and disbelief we felt as we heard
the news, saw the images and sat to watch. That day,
the world became a scary place. The attacks became
something we talked about late at night, a somber
subject we followed until someone else appeared and
broke the tension.
Some people remember Sept. 12, 2001 as a day when
Americans rededicated themselves to their communi-
ties, forged new bonds of friendship and, for a little
while, treated each other with kindness. That rosy
vision ignores the dread, paranoia and anger that
seeped into our public discourse over time. We didn't
understand what the attack meant for several weeks.
A few of us didn't even hear about the attacks until the
day after. I didn't.
On the night of Sept. 11, my seventh-grade classmate
told me that something bad had happened in New York,
but he wasn'tallowed to say what. My class had gone on
a retreat to a summer camp, and few of us had phones.
At breakfast the next morning, our school counselor
broke the news: Planes had hit the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. I raised my hand to ask if they were
passenger planes and whether it had been an accident.
Waiting for the bus that afternoon I remembered visit-
ing the towers the August before. It had been so foggy
that all I could see was the sidewalk 110 stories below.
When my mother told me that the towers had fallen,
my stomach sank. I ran to the TV. CNN was playing the
grainy amateur video of the second impact - the video
they don't show any more. NBC had a satellite photo of

the cancerous debris plume. Every now and then they
showed silent footage of people running from the grey
ash cloud that consumed the streets as a tower fell. The
clip ended with cars and people caked with powder
struggling through what looked like a disaster movie
scene.
The story goes that on Sept. 12, Americans were
united. We certainly were scared. Some of us were
scared together. Where have we gone since? To can-
.dlelight vigils. To peace protests. If people were here
on a visa, they registered with the FBI. Our country
went to war, twice: Eventually our friends went, too.
We chose an African American man to be our presi-
dent. The stock market fell, then rose, then fell again.
Our army surged, twice. Many of us lost our jobs, our
homes or both. This anniversary will lead most of us
to reflect on what has happened. It's also a chance to
think about what comes next.
What do we want America to look like 10 years
from now? Boy Scouts repeat a motto that includes
the words, "I will do my best to do my duty to God and
my country." I hope 10 years from now more Ameri-
cans will be asking themselves how they can best do
their duty to their country. But I don't want America
to be a place where the only answer to that question is
military or government service. Our country is more
than the institutions of national defense, and it is big-
ger than its government. Our country is our neighbors.
It is our towns, our student organizations, our places
of worship, our workplaces and our friends. Our coun-
try is our families. I hope that 10 years from now we
think more often about the people around us, do more
to welcome those who have come here dreaming of
the day when they, too, will be officially recognized as
Americans, and I hope that we spend more of our time
helping each other. What do you want America to be 10
years from now?
Seth Soderborg is an LSA senior.

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CA MPUS REAION SENDI
How has 911 changed your
life?
When 9/11 occurred, I was shocked just
like everyone else in the nation. It was just a
regular school day in New Jersey. When the
attacks occurred, I just thought it was surre-
al, like something out of a movie with special
effects. It wasn'tuntil the next morningon my
way to school when I smelled the smoke and
debris drifting from New York City that real-
ity suddenly hit me. After 9/11, my life changed
drastically. Although I didn't have relatives
harmed from the incident, I grew a lot of

REACTIONS TO: CAMPUSREACTION@UMICH.EDU
empathy for my fellow students who lost their
loved ones instantly and were psychologically
traumatized. No longer was Iin my imaginary
safe haven. The events of 9/11 forced me to
open my eyes to the truth. And that truth was
there are real dangers in this world that even
I could not comprehend. Despite the fear it
instilled in me, it also made me realize that life
is too short and that I should make the most
of it. Fighting with other people will not solve
problems. And in the end, we as Americans
need to bond together as a community to stay
strong in the face of adversity.
Steven Chang
University alum, class of2011

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must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Letters are edited for style, length, clarity
and accuracy. All submissions become property of the Daily. We do not print anonymous letters.
Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu.

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