Accusations of Long Beach Union bias unfounded

In Sterling Harris’ column in the Sept. 29 issue of the Daily Forty-Niner, he condemns the Long Beach Union—yet demonstrates a bias as strong as the one he ascribes to the paper. He also asserts many inaccuracies about both Sen. Guido D’Onofrio and the Union.

First, Harris devotes half of his article to a misread sentence. In the Sept. 26 Union, D’Onofrio wrote, “Our student body has never cried foul against the Union and I believe it is a judge of balance and acceptable content far superior to any group of officials.”

Harris misinterpreted this to mean the Union staff was the superior judge, but D’Onofrio obviously referred to the student body; he meant the media should never be dominated by any small group of people.

Through all the accusations of bias and mud-slinging in the Union’s articles last semester, not a single detractor ever debated the factual evidence of the articles.

If the opinion pieces seemed weighted, this was because public sentiment expressed itself in that manner—and the investigative piece was verifiably and journalistically sound.

Harris desires to “promote balance in the weekly paper,” but he doesn’t realize the correct way to do so is to write. In a society based upon free speech, balancing public voice is not censoring it to make it “fair”—it is voicing the balancing opinion.

The Union has not, this semester or the last, censored or omitted any articles it received. If it wasn’t printed, it was not expressed.

Those who claim “bias” against the Union have not closely inspected the matter. The paper did what a publication is supposed to do—inform its readers—and should be praised.

- Noah Karp, creative writing major and opinions editor of the Long Beach Union

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