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Show The Utah Enterprise Review , March 9, 1977 Page 23b Commission were using its to advocate ERA, she said. Second, she feared that the women's movement would influence mothers and wives to leave their homes to seek a career. That is strange talk, I submit, coming from a woman who has pursued her own career, first as a legal secretary and now' as a legislator. The first reason advanced is incorrect as a matter of fact but is no justification for cutting the appropriation in any event. No members of the Governors Commission has ever campaigned for ERA, though Ms. Lynn Harrison, a former member, did campaign against it. The second reason advanced is simply not a proper concern of Peterson or of Georgia Peterson Versus Womens Rights by Parker M. Nielson C The goal of popular government to meld the divergent factions of society is frequently subverted when we send persons of limited vision, unable to distinguish the substance of an issue from its cosmetic superficiality, to do the work of the electorate. Nowhere is that more evident than in our state legislatures, composed of part time, amateur lawmakers, and it was vividly illustrated this past week in the action taken on the Governors Commission on the Status of 0 u N T Women. In this instance the form in which the issue was cast was the controversy over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) while the substance that wras ignored was equality of opportunity for women - an entirely different thing. The legislators seemed unable to distinguish the two. Governor Matheson, recognizing the importance of the womens rights issue, requested in excess of $30,000 to continue, and expand, the work of the Commission. Due largely to the influence of avowed ERA foe Rep. Georgia B. E R P 0 Peterson, the recommended appropriation was reduced to the insulting level of $S,000, though subsequently increased to $22,000. My point has not so much to do with the appropriation itself, for there is never enough money to go around and the Governor's Commission may have to do some belt tightening along with all other agencies, but the reasons advanced for the budget cuts simply misconceive the issue and distort the proper role of government. Rep. Petersons reasons for the budget cuts were essentially two. Many of the members of the Governors I N T I Wvi7 OF IN CAST OF IT course WAS you I Pit?. Imf i i COST OF wuep m AWt? MIU40US! ISN'T WOT anvmopf, V0URS. Rietnr I REAL- - BooK! ON FACT! IT cANceioa?-Il?65T AFAPT07 FROM A 0AS0? i tumM ON IT WAS I veepiH. 30T W tT wS RACef IT TttX&UJT?S! WHAT GOOWTfcY government. Many, myself included, favor the goals of ERA but have withheld support for it as a matter of methodology. I happen to think that women are already entitled to their rights and that ERA is not necessary to achieve them. But to pretend that women are not often denied equal job opportunity or equal credit, or that they do not have equal needs for those or the other benefits of society, is to close ones eyes to reality and to lack human compassion. Sen. Frances Farleys at the of mens grill the University Club, and the experience own legislatures finding of some 90 statutes which are sexually discriminatory, illustrate that there is indeed much for the Governors Commission to do. Whether women are to leave the home is for them to individually decide, and not Rep. Peterson or the legislature. The form in this instance is ERA. The substance is that women are, indeed, subject to many unfair practices that should be corrected. The legislature apparently can find unlimited funds for mindless projects such as monitoring pornography but not for efforts to improve the quality of life. N I0MWT BfiSO HALF i HAW? AS if mmwtte was snu. na e. UU it I V Ptt ftkP nrr Pragmatic Dogmatics JOURNALISTS to openings, however, he quotes the "most reliable" journalism statisticians as observ- by Kent Shearer You possibly have wondered what sorts of persons feed, and will feed, us our daily pabulum of advertising and of print and electronic news. If so, you may find a departure point to understanding in the It contains an March Atlantic Monthly. U.: Notes on Woodstein article entitled, the Mass Production and Questionable Education of Journalists." The author is Ben H. Bagdikian, a lecturer in journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. Taken in context, Bagdikian offers a somber analysis - that although our most capable commentators and reporters are not journalism school graduates, it is trainees wrho tend presently to get such communications jobs as are available. As to proficiency, he wrote 53 Pulitzer Prize winners. Among respondents, did not major in journalism, but rather had liberal arts degrees. Some of the balance had not attended college at all. As three-quarte- rs ing, "More and more, students notice that when recruiters come to campus from newspapers and from magazines and public relations agencies, they dont stop in the liberal arts departments but go directly to the schools or departments of journalism." If Bagdikian is to be believed, products on the whole are not very admirable either in their training or in their attitude. First, their education is suspect. Most faculties are not distinguished either in The journalistic research or practice. curriculum suffers from the paradox of teaching, on the one hand, reporting (exposition), and, on the other, advertising (propaganda). Both instruction and substance fall victim to a bitter civil war pitting emphasis upon traditional training by the "green eyeshades" proponents against concentration upon "precision journalism advocated by the Second, they are under intense finan "chi-squares- ." cial and employment pressures. As w'ith any college student, their education is expensive ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 per academic year for tuition, fees and spartan ratio is living expenses. The increasingly unfavorable. Weekly salaries for those who land positions are low. Third, those who survive the "enrollment glut" are elitist by nature. They may be learned in academic subjects, but they dont know beans about type fonts and sources of information. They cannot relate to the thoughts and motivations - apart from their perception of the ideological causes - of the masses. In short, they prefer martinis to beer. job-stude- nt In my judgment, Bagdikians indictment is both selective and overbroad. It is particularly dangerous to group, then stereotype, individuals who - although they share kindred educations - are otherwise disparate in their backgrounds. That having been said, the reader, listener or watcher who disregards Bagdikians observations altogether would make a mistake. |