Sioux City Journal devotes entire front page to bullying editorial

[playthrough]

http://news.yahoo.com/iowa-paper-devotes-front-page-fighting-bullying-175921792.html

Bravo, I say.

 

[JBHawkEye]

It's powerful stuff. It was gutsy decision to do it, and I applaud them.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Bullying is too quickly becoming a replacement word for ganging up on gay kids. Call it what it is: homophobia.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

From the subject of this thread, I thought you meant it was an editorial that bullied the readers. Which is exactly what I believe a front-page editorial, on any topic, attempts to do.

I'm not a fan of this type of thing, no matter how well-intentioned. The message it sends is that nothing in the world that day is more important than the newspaper's opinion. We do our job by delivering the awful facts, not by scolding the readers with rather facile conclusions.

 

[93Devil]

Bullying is too quickly becoming a replacement word for ganging up on gay kids. Call it what it is: homophobia.

A large portion of this country cannot even mention the President without tagging a slur into the phrase. Why should we think a teenager, who is very different, will be treated with any respect what so ever?

Seriously, folks, this country has been going straight into the ****ter.

 

[MileHigh]

From the subject of this thread, I thought you meant it was an editorial that bullied the readers. Which is exactly what I believe a front-page editorial, on any topic, attempts to do.

I'm not a fan of this type of thing, no matter how well-intentioned. The message it sends is that nothing in the world that day is more important than the newspaper's opinion. We do our job by delivering the awful facts, not by scolding the readers with rather facile conclusions.

I agree with this. Yes, bullying is a seemingly big deal, but it's been around for decades.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

From the subject of this thread, I thought you meant it was an editorial that bullied the readers. Which is exactly what I believe a front-page editorial, on any topic, attempts to do.

I'm not a fan of this type of thing, no matter how well-intentioned. The message it sends is that nothing in the world that day is more important than the newspaper's opinion. We do our job by delivering the awful facts, not by scolding the readers with rather facile conclusions.

I agree with this. Yes, bullying is a seemingly big deal, but it's been around for decades.

Bullying was good in the beginning, but now it's gone too far.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Bullying is too quickly becoming a replacement word for ganging up on gay kids. Call it what it is: homophobia.

A large portion of this country cannot even mention the President without tagging a slur into the phrase. Why should we think a teenager, who is very different, will be treated with any respect what so ever?

Seriously, folks, this country has been going straight into the ****ter.

If only people would treat this president with the uninhibited respect they showed for each of his predecessors, then no kids anywhere would ever get picked on.

 

[93Devil]

If people call the president a *igger, which I have heard many times, there isn't much stopping them from calling this kid a *aggot.

If you don't see that happening in America today, then my America is different than yours.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

If people call the president a *igger, which I have heard many times, there isn't much stopping them from calling this kid a *aggot.

If you don't see that happening in America today, then my America is different than yours.

Your America often seems to have inferior educational materials to mine, so I'm cool with that.

 

[93Devil]

If people call the president a *igger, which I have heard many times, there isn't much stopping them from calling this kid a *aggot.

If you don't see that happening in America today, then my America is different than yours.

Your America often seems to have inferior educational materials to mine, so I'm cool with that.

Come down south, and Virginia is not even that south.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Bullying is too quickly becoming a replacement word for ganging up on gay kids. Call it what it is: homophobia.

A large portion of this country cannot even mention the President without tagging a slur into the phrase. Why should we think a teenager, who is very different, will be treated with any respect what so ever?

Seriously, folks, this country has been going straight into the ****ter.

If only people would treat this president with the uninhibited respect they showed for each of his predecessors, then no kids anywhere would ever get picked on.

I give you credit, you posted this same honorable notion in 2006. I admire you for your consistency.

Wait, where's that blue font?

 

[YGBFKM]

Devil, none of us live in your world, much less your country.

 

[WriteThinking]

I don't see how you can, or should, spend an entire front page on one editorial -- particularly without any news or related factual stories or sidebars along with it.

It smacks of screaming, in-your-face pontificating, and topic-de-jour-ism, not necessarily the strong, principled stand that the paper intends.

Besides that point, and not to defend whatever harassment this boy endured, but he probably did not kill himself strictly because of the bullying. I would question whether we can be certain that that is even necessarily what sent him over the edge.

As others have said, bullying has been around forever, it tends to wax and wane, and I'm not sure how much "public education" people need in order to know right from wrong and that they shouldn't do it.

Editorials like this -- particularly when done en masse and the stand to take is rather obvious and unanimous -- may, unfortunately, actually bring excessive and unwanted attention. I wonder if this type of thing might even cause people to do exactly what you intend and hope for and encourage them not to do.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

Bullying is too quickly becoming a replacement word for ganging up on gay kids. Call it what it is: homophobia.

A large portion of this country cannot even mention the President without tagging a slur into the phrase. Why should we think a teenager, who is very different, will be treated with any respect what so ever?

Seriously, folks, this country has been going straight into the ****ter.

If only people would treat this president with the uninhibited respect they showed for each of his predecessors, then no kids anywhere would ever get picked on.

I give you credit, you posted this same honorable notion in 2006. I admire you for your consistency.

Wait, where's that blue font?

My point

















































Your head

 

[BillyT]

Bullying is too quickly becoming a replacement word for ganging up on gay kids. Call it what it is: homophobia.

I taught for 16 years, and I can tell you it's not always gay kids.

Yes, a lot of times it is, but there's bullying going on out there against anyone who is somehow "different."

 

[BillyT]

While I agree with the sentiments, and the idea it was gutsy, I do not believe the front page is the place for an editorial.

This would have worked fine on the front of the opinion section.

I would even say refer it.

 

[copperpot]

the stand to take is rather obvious and unanimous

This is what leapt out at me. An editorial decrying bullying? Doesn't strike me as "gutsy." The whole thing strikes me as a gimmick. It would have been more palatable packaged with some real news.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

the stand to take is rather obvious and unanimous

This is what leapt out at me. An editorial decrying bullying? Doesn't strike me as "gutsy." The whole thing strikes me as a gimmick. It would have been more palatable packaged with some real news.

Coming tomorrow: Our plea for world peace

 

[reformedhack]

The only way this would have been as edgy or as gutsy as the editors think they were, would be if the editorial had come out in favor of bullying.

Future hard-hitting, front-page editorials against:

* Crime
* Pollution
* Drugs
* Racism

... etc.