Confusion

As the war in Viet Nam raged on, all over America sit-ins and demonstrations at universities and colleges became daily occurrences.

And another peculiar thing happened in this country--a "generation gap" developed.

The older people--the parents of the rioting youth--seemed to think the war was OK. They re-elected Richard Nixon president by a landslide--Nixon who was absolutely despised by almost all young people. The youth side of the generation gap supported a mellower man named McGovern who, I think I remember, promised to lower the voting age to eighteen and end the war.

Kui Ka Lono  staff had voted to publish their student newspaper as a collective, a sort of leaderless team governed by consensus--that is, no Editor.

This was very convenient when some irate reader came into the office to punch the Editor out for some offensive article about the war because he just couldn't punch everybody! 


Some of my journalism students decided to protest the war by chaining themselves to the flagpole in the center of the campus and I watched them being arrested and dragged away to police paddy wagons. 

What textbooks there were on mass communication and news writing were not much help to me under these chaotic conditions.


I believe in the old-fashioned "freedom of the press" and thought the students had a right to  speak their mind in the Kui Ka Lono but I also tried to encourage them to keep their articles balanced and to avoid lawsuits.

These were exciting times for this new Associate Professor!

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