Friday, January 11, 2008

Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

The Lantern, the student newspaper of Ohio State, is catching flak for running this headline and photo on the front of Tuesday's sports section, the morning after the Buckeyes lost the Bowl Championship Series title game to Louisiana State.

On Friday, editor Gerrick Lewis issued the following statement:

"On the front of Tuesday's Sports section, The Lantern ran a photo of two firefighters battling a business fire in South Korea with the headline, "It could be worse." No one on the staff, myself included, thought of Sept. 11, nor is this a picture of Sept. 11. This has raised a good question for debate: When we see smoke and firefighters, do our minds automatically assume it is Sept. 11? Isn't the end goal of terrorism for us to continue to live in fear and associate every image with that day? The Lantern would never make light of such a catastrophe. We simply wanted Buckeye fans to know, it could be worse. A football loss isn't the end of the world. Neither is this image."

Thanks to Romenesko and Awful Announcing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To me it looked like a giant chicken tender and not a fire

Anonymous said...

Gerrick,
As usual you are thinking outside the box. I admire that about you. I liked your humorous look at what is simply a football game that was lost. It was a creative way to handle a missed deadline by a writer. Your question at the end of your statement on Friday, “Isn't the end goal of terrorism for us to continue to live in fear and associate every image with that day” is worthy of debate. Keep up the good work and remember some people resent it when you make them think.

G-M