COLUMN: Running an ad of controversy: The editor’s answer to questions concerning the Persian Peacock

Everything from the integrity of this newspaper to my personal competence and morality have been questioned over the last two weeks. In that time, the Persian Peacock ad has continued to run in each issue despite requests to have it removed.

Here is the official, and final, explanation.

First, you should know The Statesman editorial staff doesn’t generally deal with advertising. Ads surround the blank spaces student editors are given to fill with news content and are filled in electronically. Advertising reps (also students) flag potentially problematic ads for my approval. No such flag was raised and I saw the ad on Monday just hours before readers did.

This separation between advertising and editorial staff means content, ranging from movie reviews to coverage of community events, will not be influenced by the money we may or may not be receiving from businesses, campus organizations, church groups and national advertisers.

Second, a little about the ad itself. The drawing is from a 1940s-style pin-up, used as one letter writer mentioned, to boost morale of the troops during World War II. Art work like this has been available in the USU Bookstore in the past. Similar ads have run every year. Offensive? To some. Pornographic? It depends what definition you use, but probably not. There is no legal definition of pornography and the ad certainly doesn’t meet Webster’s definition: “The depiction of erotic behavior.”

The ad also doesn’t meet the legal definitions of “indecent” or “obscene.” Despite objections, we were under no legal obligation to pull the ad due to the offense it may have given to some or its suggestive nature.

Third, because The Statesman is part of a publicly funded university, we do not enjoy the editorial autonomy that editors of private newspapers do. Private newspapers may reject advertising as they wish, but a collegiate paper is a more open, public forum available for a variety of views. Precedent dictates the only reason I can reject an ad is because of more stringent reasons than the private world.

This does not mean just “anything” runs. During the last several weeks, two quite racy ads were not allowed to run. In each case, The Statesman worked with advertisers to find more appropriate options, rather than just cutting them completely. Take for instance, a situation earlier this semester when a company advertising cell phone downloads sought advertising space. Pictures on the ad were visually graphic, featuring real women in what we felt were inappropriate poses and clothing. The company was contacted and a compromise was reached. But the ad was not pulled point-blank, just as the Persian Peacock ad wasn’t pulled and compromises have been reached with other ads.

There have been many other arguments for both pulling and keeping the ad presented to me. They ranged from the moral to the ridiculous. Everything from the fact some found the ad to be objectifying to the fact the woman in the picture is wearing a wedding ring and is, therefore, a moral person, were brought to my attention.

I don’t necessarily agree with the content of the ad. Some of my recent critics might even find it ironic that my thesis as an undergraduate honors student is to explore the effectiveness of education in fighting damaging stereotypes in advertising, particularly those related to female body image.

But none of these other arguments or my own beliefs played into our decision. The only reasons the ad continued to run were based on precedent and a desire to keep this paper as censor-free as possible.

Still, response to the ads surprised me. There seems to be no objection to lingerie ads printed by places like JC Penney or Kohl’s, even though these ads picture real women in major states of undress. Certainly, continuing to run the ad was not a product of some hidden agenda or desire to offend our readers.

As worrisome as potentially alienating readers by offending them can be, the idea of cheating them with censorship is terrifying. By removing that ad, I would have set a dangerous precedent that it is alright for student editors to pick and choose based on personal bias. The consequences of giving an editor of a public newspaper that kind of moral leeway could be disastrous to the free and open public forum this campus currently enjoys.

Is asking a student editor to be the moral dictate of a campus a good idea? Of course not. Editors have their opinions and personal beliefs just like everyone else. So what happens when there is an editor with hard and fast Republican ideologies who feels that printing advertising for a Democratic candidate goes against his or her “standards?” Or if an atheist editor feels the ads placed in the paper by campus religious groups like the LDS Institute or FOCUS are “offensive?”

It is not my role to keep the campus “morally” in line – nor should it be and nor does anyone want it to be. The value of keeping The Statesman an open, public and censor-free student publication is definitely worth the occasional lingerie ad.

Amid all the criticism, I was encouraged by the number of students who knew their voices would be heard. As a place for open dialogue, we must be doing something right. I was a little disappointed to learn, however, that one ad could obtain more reaction than all of the articles that ran in that time period combined.

It is my hope that the same sense of activism that accompanied this small six inch ad will somehow be transferred to the “other” stuff that fills up The Statesman each week.

Brooke Nelson is the editor in chief of the Utah Statesman. Comments can be directed to editor@statesman.usu.edu.