Saturday, February 4, 2017

At the Daily Cal, Professors' Letters to Chancellor Are Edited for Clarity and Style


Image result for jerry lewis as nutty professor

In the run-up to Milo Yiannopoulos' scheduled appearance at UC Berkeley, several professors signed onto to two open letters sent to Chancellor Nicholas Dirks urging him to cancel the event. (He refused,but the event was cancelled by a riot.). Many of these letters were published in the Daily Californian campus newspaper (below).

You will note that in response to one of my comments in the q and a, another reader made a great observation.


"You wrote:
"Amazing how people can get PhDs and be professors without knowing the first thing about the First Amendment."
"I couldn't agree more. It's also utterly amazing to me that the editor felt the need to edit professor's letters for style and clarity!!
From the editors just before the article: 
"Editor’s note: The following open letters are transcripts of emails sent by UC Berkeley faculty to Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Associate Chancellor Nils Gilman. They have been edited for style and clarity." [emphasis added]
So exactly what did the editor cover up? Professors are incapable of actually writing clear letters? Their "style" needs to be edited?? It's absurd. Their letters should have been published exactly as written, and let the chips fall where they may. Not cleaned up to suit the editor's preferences or biases - or worse, to try to manipulate how readers might feel about the letters."


http://www.dailycal.org/2017/01/10/open-letter-calling-cancellation-milo-yiannopolous-event/#comment-3137768976

A great observation, my friend. Here we have university professors writing open letters to their chancellor, which the student journalists at the Daily Californian have to edit for style and clarity.

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