Film medium not a moral education

I read and appreciated Chris Heide’s article “Learning Lessons from Hollywood,” (Jan. 12) last week in The Daily, partly because I have been thinking about the same topic for awhile. It is true that films can prompt people to action, but we ought not get carried away and think that the film medium can provide a moral education. One of the characteristics of moral behavior is critical distance between the subject and both his milieu and his own actions. The moral subject must be able to evaluate potential actions and decide which one would be best. A film, especially a well-made one, tends to discourage this critical distance. It gives the viewer the impression of being right in the middle of the action, without the luxury of time to step back and reflect on what he ought to do. The pace of a film is also much greater than the rate at which people can absorb information, which prevents the viewer from weighing the arguments and the options available.

For this reason, film may motivate action, and this action may be good, but it also tends to be unconsidered action. At best, a film may move its viewer to investigate the issue more thoroughly, as Blood Diamond apparently did for Mr. Heide, but this requires existing habits of critical thought that films cannot engender. Perhaps film is the only way to bring attention to what is wrong, but it cannot make people think clearly and critically about the causes and the extent of the problem.

Grant Volle

volle@u.washington.edu

Questioning the difference between FOX and CNN

Brandon Dennis’ “everyone is biased so leave FOX alone” argument is both old and weak (“Readers beware: the myth of bias-free media,” Jan. 11). The difference between FOX and CNN is that FOX has made the explicit decision to seek a certain kind of TV viewer by showing news of interest to talk radio listeners. Good for them, I say, use the free market to make money!

CNN and others have a different market, a market of people interested in news, preferably unbiased news. To accomplish this goal they have a number of institutional checks to ensure what gets reported is as objectively true as possible. If a reporter were to “craft their questions to elicit responses that either agree with their own viewpoint,” the editor would step in and pull the plug. Which reminds me, such behavior is not, and never will be, illegal. Read the First Amendment.

FOX’s purpose is to make money, just like CNN. FOX does it by appealing to the right; CNN seeks a more broad-based clientele. It’s market-based economics, not justification to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Sean C .Kellogg

GPSS Treasurer, Student Activities & Union Facilities

I’m not entirely sure if Brandon Dennis ever did any research or took any courses on First Amendment law and in particular libel, because his example about the (deliberate) misquotation is just flat out wrong [in his Jan. 11 column].

That is a libelous statement that would not receive First Amendment protection. Even under the most stringent protections available under New York Times v. Sullivan, the public official simply has to show that a false statement was made with actual malice, i.e. that it was false or made recklessly in disregard of the truth.

The defamatory imputation is what is important here, and therefore the ellipses are of no bar to a successful suit made here because the average reader of reasonable intelligence will take it to constitute an admission of homosexuality whereas the original statement of which it was made had nothing to do to that effect.

I realize that not all of us are lawyers or necessarily well read in a particular area of law, but seriously, where’s the fact-checking in this regard?

Shaun Lee

1st Yr Prof., Exchange – Law

Tipping ensures fair wages

One may notice while reading through Sara Anne Mamman’s op-ed (“Tips are more than what they seem,” Jan. 16) that she never mentions having worked in a job that relied on tips. At best, she has friends that have. It should be no surprise then that her argument applies only to some world outside the reality that many of us actually inhabit.

Were employers to pay their employees enough to make serving a sustainable career, the prices of food would have to go up. In an area like the U-District where businesses are in heavy competition against one another for the lowest prices in order to attract cheap college students, there is little chance of this happening. Yet here’s the rub: Someone has to do these jobs at these low wages.

Tipping is the best way to ensure high employee pay and low costs for the meal one eats. Seven dollars is cheap for meal, $8 is still pretty cheap. Falling back on the broke college student defense is insulting — especially as a justification for not tipping a server who is making minimum wage.

Reuben Silverman

Food Service Worker Lead, Housing and Food Services