Brown and White Vol. 110 No. 35

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 110 no 35 all the lehigh news first tuesday march 4 2003 professor discusses media bias by ellen lempereur news writer todd gitlin professor of journalism and sociology at columbia university revealed the paradox of a misinformed society in an age of informa tion to an eager audience in linderman library thursday we are immersed in the tor rent of images and sounds where the primary purpose of televi sion is to collect eyeballs and eardrums whose attention can be sold to advertising gitlin said gitlin has written six books including media unlimited how the torrent of images and sounds overwhelms our lives he was also a writer for the new york times and the washington post during his speech he tried to bring listeners back to the spirit of enlightenment a time he said when the truth was considered to set people free when people know the truth they are capable of gov erning themselves he said gidin said the paradox he described lies in the fact that regardless of how easy it is to obtain information people still remain ignorant and disengaged gidin said that following the sept 11 terrorist attacks 50 per cent of the top news stories claimed that at least one and up to seven of the 19 hijackers was iraqi it turned out that none of the sept 11 hijackers were iraqi gitlin said americans were deceived by the newscasts and he went on to describe american journalism as a co production with the pentagon and government in order to allow the media to fully know what goes on behind the scenes of war the department of defense has allowed reporters in military units he said however gitlin said reporters in these units are also blinded by their natural loyalty to their experience with the men of a single military unit while gitlin criticized all media he named television as the primary culprit for misinfor mation gitlin said television is readily available to many americans and the bulk of free time people have is devoted to watching it he said americans can call them selves informed and politically active by keeping themselves updated with cnn or fox news in reality however sitting at home in front of a television is not really being active he said gitlin referred to robert putnam's idea of social capital as the true definition of civic engagement which he said americans desperately need putnam is the peter and student arrested at peace rally by jess glowinski xt 111 i . rsews writer it was supposed to be a peace rally but at least one lehigh stu dent has a different story to tell a group of lehigh under graduates joined with students from neighboring colleges to ride to new york city on feb 15 where an estimated 100,000 people protested against a possi ble war with iraq when the buses arrived in new york that morning the leaders told the students to break up into groups of three or four and to meet back at the bus by mid-afternoon lee blaney 05 and alex grosskurth 05 along with sever al friends set off to join the crowd with the masses of people converging on the east side of the city things soon became chaotic the police erected metal barricades to try to con tain the crowd but protesters pushed past the barriers in an attempt to make it closer to the main stage of the demonstration grosskurth said he and blaney were caught up in a crowd that was moving past a barricade we were being pushed from all directions he said in the frenzy i lost track of everyone i had been with i found everyone again except lee in the midst of the confusion blaney had been arrested b&wphoto by marjsa brjckman a student logs in to the new campus portal the university announced last week that the portal is now available to use classroom space still creates conflicts by mark campinell news writer it is not uncommon to walk into a classroom and find that students are cramped and can barely fit in the room the acoustics of the class room may be below average the seats painfully uncomfortable and the rooms awkward these problems have plagued the university for years and now changes are being made to correct them this semester the journalism department was relocated to coppee hall which was com pletely renovated to include state of the art classrooms equipped with brand new com puters and projector systems in addition the first floor of maginnes hall which used to house the bookstore will be ren ovated registrar bruce correll said the facility will include nine rooms with several different lay outs one of these rooms will be a 90-seat theater in addition three 50-seat classrooms a 32-seat class room a u shaped classroom with 40 seats and two 26-student seminar rooms are planned for the past several years vice provost for library and technology services bruce taggart said he has made an effort to ensure that the number of technology classrooms and class sizes are gready improved however correll said that at the same time the university is losing classroom space in packard laboratory to make way for additional laboratory space furthermore he said that chandler-ullmann hall and williams hall both need to be renovated rob knuepfer 03 said he agreed the two buildings are in need of repair the rooms in williams are so small and the ventilation is awful knuepfer said i feel bad for the students who have class there on a consistent basis kathy olson assistant profes sor of journalism and communi cation said i have taught in chandler-ullmann and williams before and the conditions weren't great i taught once in chandler when the air condition er wasn't working yet and it was quite uncomfortable see arrest page 6 see space page 3 see gitlin page 3 f { :^__ ___*!___! f m i men's and women's basketball teams compete against holy cross see story on page 16 sports 12-16 men's lacrosse 12 women's lacrosse 13 turnln'up the heat 15 editorial pages editor nur-e rahman lands an exclusive inter view with author salman rushdie see story on page 5 news 1-6 college news briefs 2 mba program 4 world old prices on the rise who is to blame for the increase see story on page 7 business 7-9 economy and war 7 business briefs 7 look who's investing 9 quick airports at a higher altitude require a longer airstrip due to lower air densi ty source www.amusingfacts.com