I am very grateful to Pomona's Student Union (PSU) for bringing me to campus last evening. I would love Claremont to have something analogous to a student-run, independent speakers bureau. While I think PSU unjustly folded when the administration and certain segments of the student body pressured them after their ill-fated immigration debate, I have tremendous respect for the group and my criticisms of it are always intended to be taken as trying to make it better, not worse.
But tonight, I thought their moderator left something to be desired for reasons I'll get into in a moment.
I suspect part of the reason I was brought to speak at PSU on the State of Student Media was to actually advocate and articulate. And yes, be a bit controversial. (In fact, the Facebook event publicizing the event referred to me as "divisive," which is a bit of a biased word to begin with.) So, true to form, I made a crack about how political diversity really made me the only Elephant in the Room and I encouraged Pomona students to get real about their education because I think political correctness is imperilling their -- and by proxy -- my education. Why don't Pomona students criticize professors who fight to disinvite speakers? Why doesn't President Oxtoby speak out against students shouting down invited speakers?
Of course arguing that someone is "mean" or resorting to "ad hominem" attacks is a tactic used by some people whenever there is measured criticism that they cannot or will not respond to. Such was the case last evening when both Trevor and the moderator suggested I was being "rude."
And the moderator, despite my ironic suggestion that he was actually a good moderator, seemed more inclined to attack me than to actually moderate the discussion. Several times he interrupted me -- and only me -- in the middle of a sentence and while I was perhaps not as articulate as Abhi Nemani, who in fairness is something of a great speaker (if a tad unoriginal in his thinking sometimes), I think that the moderator knows that there are many ways to give nonverbal cues to indicate you've gone on too long. That he didn't do that, suggests to me a kind of bias. But I leave that for others to decide.
At one point, he called me out for video recording the panelists. He tried to ask me, snidely, of course, where the video would be online. I informed him that it was audio and that I can do whatever I like with the audio or video I take because...
1) California law protects me. 2) I've started to make it a habit of recording every public event at which I am a participant.
Call me paranoid, but I seem to believe reading about two boys who were punished and the only thing that cleared their name was having a video that documented what actually happened.
Oh, and yes, I will continued to criticize The Student Life for typos. I'm a one-man operation that has produced over 1,000 blog posts since I began in September. I don't have "fact checkers" -- paid or unpaid -- and I do the level best I can. A subsidized product, with staff members, ought to be able to do a better job than some guy sitting on his computer.
3 comments:
I agree with claims you have made, both in this blog post and at the panel discussion itself. For example, there is an undeniable lack of political diversity on Pomona's campus. It is also certainly true that individual memories of an event can diverge, often quite substantially and that recordings of the event can be the best way to determine what actually occurred.
This last point is uniquely relevant to the PSU panel, because I remember a very different moderator than the one you describe above. I remember a moderator who, by and large, tolerated your personal attacks; specifically, I am certain that it was Trevor Hunnicutt and not the moderator who (appropriately) asked you to refrain from making ad hominem attacks. In fact, the moderator I remember did not interrupt you until you began to make statements about a member of the audience who was in no position to respond. A moderator who allowed panelists to make assertions about individuals who cannot defend themselves would have failed in a core duty of the position.
The only responsibility of a moderator more serious than preventing personal remarks against those who cannot speak for themselves is insuring that the discussion stays confined to the assigned topic of the event. While many of your criticisms of the TSL may be justified, a panal on student media at the 5Cs is not the venue to discuss the details of specific grievances you have with the management of that paper. I believe the moderator was fully justified in reminding you that there are other options (including this blog) for making those views known. The fact that the moderator did not interrupt other speakers was more a reflection on the fact that no other panelist strayed so far from the advertised subject of the conversation.
As I said, I am writing to express surprise at how widely different our recollections of the panel are. I am curious as to the truth of the matter -- is your audio recording of sufficient quality to support, for example, your claim that the moderator, and not Trevor Hunnicutt, stated that you made ad hominem attacks? Or that the moderator called you rude, which I also do not recall? (If your recording does not clarify these points of disagreement, I will understand; after all, you were recording from behind the speakers and thus were not in the best position to capture high-quality audio. I'm sure you would have recorded the event differently had that been possible.)
I am also somewhat confused on you position on ad hominem attacks in general. In your post, you state, "the moderator ... seemed more inclined to attack me than to actually moderate the discussion." But you also write, "arguing that someone is ... resorting to ad hominem attacks is a tactic used by some people whenever there is measured criticism that they cannot or will not respond to. (internal quotation marks omitted)" Is this sentence, and more generally the entire post, not complaining that the moderator made what you judge to be as hominem attacks against you? Further, are you suggesting that the moderator should have responded to your criticism? In my view, that would represent entering the debate in a way far more troubling than any of the allegations you leveled in your post.
I believe that you and the points of view you express serve a valuable role in the five-college environment. But I also believe that the moderator of the student media panel did an excellent job in allowing a free-flowing debate while keeping the conversation relatively civil and on point. In your attack on him, you not only ignore the very capable job he did but also make claims about specific statements he made that, at the very least, do not match my own recollections. While I have no personal stake in the matter (I am in no way associated with PSU,) I feel that your criticisms are highly uncalled for. While you certainly have the right to say what you have, I could not blame any reader of this post for agreeing with Trevor's suggestion that you can, at times, be rude.
--Daniel Sockwell
Daniel,
I have the recording of the first 40 or so minutes of the event and will email it to you should you want it. (My tech guy is in Oregon.)
The moderator twice encouraged me not to use personal attacks. Unfortunately, that was after the battery died on my machine and after he called me out for using my video recording.
My arguments against the management of The Student Life and the subsidies were directly related to my opinions of the state of on campus media and so fit comfortably within the topic, especially as Trevor repeatedly stressed the high standards of his publication. I was well within my right to criticize the Student Life for its numerous errors. I would not have agreed to be present on any panel were I not given the ability to speak fully about the topics presented.
On the point about the moderator, I did not use his name on this forum because I understand the difficulty of being a moderator and so I didn't want to be too taxing. Several of the observers made a point about how he interrupted me twice -- once when I made a point about how I read The Student Life with a black pen to correct the typos and he suggested that I was in no position to comment. This kind of intrusion on his part was pure editorial commenting, rather than facilitating a discussion.
Again, I made the point that I was labeled as "divisive" (in the flyer) before I was even permitted to speak and "controversial" on the panel. The point was to have a frank discussion of student media on campus.
I was frank. I apologize to those who have failed to develop what Nemani called a "thick skin" but I encourage them to go out and get one.
The points that you made against TSL were completely valid.
The way you addressed the points, as you said, might have been better handled.
If the first question after the intro would have been "say something snarky about one of the other publications," you would have been in the right.
From what I recall, the moderator "checked" you by saying "let's keep it respectful" because frankly, you didn't. Right off the bat, you went after Trevor in a way that seemed malicious -- as though you were just waiting for someone to let you off your leash.
But again, I don't disagree with what you said at all -- and I think it was the right thing to address it -- but the way you went about it wasn't the most diplomatic.
I would also point out that Ilan's phrasing was very well done but you should also know that Ilan and his group sat directly behind me and did nothing but giggle and chatter when anybody but you were speaking. Every time a question was asked, they'd ask each other "what was the question?" because they were busy having their own mini and disrupting debate.
To their credit, when I asked them to please stop talking so I could listen, they did. At least for a few minutes.
This would also lead me to believe that Ilan and his group may have (understandably) shared your own perceived role -- rather than to have an open and respectful discussion, to use the forum as an opportunity to "out" people (to use words overheard before the event began).
Other than that Charles, I think you did very well and presented your thoughts in a clear and concise fashion.
I would drop the "victimized by the moderator" front, though -- he was completely right to try and simmer you down. Sometimes a carefully planned strategy can be more disarming than all out attack -- Dien Bien Phu taught us that, right?
Stay prolific!
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