One of our editors had a 10 minute conversation with the editor of The Daily Bruin, Jeff Schenck. Jeff is standing by Ben Azar’s LaRouche piece and doesn’t think there is any racist connotation to the reference. There will be no apology or retraction. Jeff slipped up however when our editor asked if he would print Hitler’s name in place of LaRouche’s. He showed his thinking was not fully formed and that he had not thought this through thoroughly. He also tried to convince our editor that public perception in not his problem, and Ben Azar’s intention wasn’t what the perception was. We strongly disagree that public perception isn’t an important constituent in the editor’s decision-making process. But that is where we will leave it. FYI, we will be addressing the rest of Ben Azar’s piece tomorrow (using his past writing to contradict his own “LaRouche-like assertions” in his piece).

This is a condensed summary of the conversation (heavily paraphrased, not at all verbatim):

DD: Will you be printing a retraction or an apology for the piece?

JS: No.

DD: Why not?

JS: It was Ben’s column and Ben’s opinion and we don’t think he called you guys racist.

DD: We don’t care what he thinks about us. Anything printed in the DB reflects on the community. He equated us and critics of Dorrell with a nazi racist criminal. You don’t think LaRouche is racist?

JS: Ben never made that equation. You are reading into that. He said your arguments were like LaRouche’s arguments, silly and extremist.

DD: LaRouche is a nazi racist criminal like Hitler. Would you allow Ben Azar to put Hitler’s name in place of LaRouche in the same piece?

JS: Now that is not the same thing.

DD: It’s a matter of degrees, but the principle is the same. If Hitler made silly and extreme arguments and Ben Azar equated that kind of argumentation to critics of Dorrell in the same way, would you print it?

JS: That would not make sense.

DD: Why? Hitler’s argumentation could be called silly and extreme.

JS: If Hitler used argumentation to make a case like Ben Azar says you did that would be something we could print.

DD: So you’re saying you would allow Hitler’s name to replace LaRouche.

JS: No. It’s not the same thing. You are stretching it. He did not call you a racist, that was not his intention, and no one will equate you with being a racist from reading that.

DD: That is not true. Many people on the internet read the reference the same way we did, and we sent you links to them in our email to you and Ben. You are probably getting emails from them (Jeff said earlier he had not read his emails today). Yesterday, before we even knew about the article, we at DD received 2 emails calling us racist. We have never in the 6 months of publishing DD received such an email, not even in the heat of the season. So you are wrong, we are getting called racist as a result of that article. And that cloud of suspicion will follow anyone critical of Dorrell.

JS: We can’t be responsible for what people think.

DD: If you believed that, then why do you have editors?! You are responsible to the community for what you print. It doesn’t matter what was intended. Perception is an important part of your responsibility. If you allow Ben Azar to equate critics of Dorrell with racism you are creating and allowing a perception to exist that is harmful to us all.

JS: We are sorry if you are offended but we don’t agree with you.

DD: It’s not about us, we could care less what the DB and Ben Azar think about us. Its the larger community that we are concerned about, and allowing this poisonous perception to exist is wrong.

JS: We are sorry if you feel that way. But it is Ben’s opinion and his piece.

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