After I found hundreds of copies of The Daily Helmsman in trashcans around campus last semester, I was angry but confident. I thought that whoever did this would be punished.
How na've.
Instead, the culprit, Jennifer Burton got away almost scot-free. Campus police, advised by the district attorney's office, decided not to charge Burton, who is a graduate assistant in the art department. They passed the case to judicial affairs, which supposedly gave her some menial punishment, although they can't tell us what.
Burton reminds me of a cockroach: she scurries away faster than you can pin her down. At the very least, she should have given a formal apology, or some kind of clue that she was sorry for the destructive act.
I'll go a step farther: Richard Lou, chair of the art department, should have canned Burton. I admit that he wrote me a very nice, two-sentence e-mail apologizing for what happened and promising to write a letter to the editor, but that's the last I heard of him.
Perhaps he was too busy. Perhaps he forgot. Perhaps he just didn't want to deal with the graduate assistant who admitted to dumping stacks of Helmsman copies.
Some people may think I'm being harsh with Burton, and I probably am. Someone has to be.
The whole mess makes me sick. If I could forget about Burton, I gladly would, but she's sparked a whole new debate.
Thanks to U of M President Shirley Raines, the Tennessee Board of Regents will decide this semester if a statewide policy should be implemented to protect free student newspapers from the likes of Burton.
Although I think Burton's actions are criminal, I applaud Raines for taking this step. Apparently, she sees that trying to intimidate the newspaper and suppress the truth is a problem.
Too bad the art department doesn't feel the same way.
If the policy is implemented by TBR, no one will be happier than I will. However, as an extra precaution, The Daily Helmsman is making a policy change of its own.
At the bottom right-hand side of this page, there's a brand spanking-new addition to the masthead, a statement that reads as follows:
"The Daily Helmsman is pleased to make a maximum of 10 copies available to a reader for free, after which $1 will be charged per copy."
Let me emphasize that The Helmsman is a free newspaper and will remain so. This statement is designed to prevent someone like Burton from trashing copies of the newspaper and getting a mere slap on the wrist.
If someone does trash more than 10 copies of the newspaper, we will sue. The newspaper will not be intimidated by Burton and her ilk.
