All the letters fit to print?

This is my last column in The Daily Princetonian. However, one month ago, I nearly resigned my columnist position in protest.

On April 12, a column ran on this page that I found particularly offensive: "Fact or fiction: Understanding the Palestinian perspective" by Taufiq Rahim '04. Several people I know on campus felt similarly and asked me to write about it. Fortunately, while discussing the piece with a like-minded friend, I convinced her to write a letter to the editor on the matter. Feeling as though I already had a guaranteed biweekly soapbox, I want the fervor to come from a new voice. The letter she wrote was well-researched, well-considered and well-written; her criticism was mature and intelligent, not personal, and purely academic.

But the letter never ran. And I since read in these pages an April 25 letter by Emily Mitchell '03, who claims to have written in several other times and never had her letters published. I began to wonder, to what standards does the 'Prince' hold submissions for print?

This question especially weighed on my mind in light of the aforementioned offensive column. What I found offensive about the column was not so much the opinion expressed in the writer's words (while I completely disagree with the opinion, as Voltaire said, "I will defend to the death your right to say it"), nor the unproductively accusatory tone of the piece. What I did find offensive about the column was that the 'Prince' chose to print it at all. What I additionally found offensive about the column was the title that the 'Prince' editors chose for the piece.

The first sentence of Rahim's piece is a caveat — "The following is a fictional account based on real events" — exactly the sort of tagline you might expect proceeding a Fox made-for-TV movie-of-the-week starring Tori Spelling, not atop an article in an ostensibly respectable newspaper. Furthermore, the first sentence was sufficiently short and unexciting for readers to easily skip over it or forget it completely by the end of the piece (as several people I spoke with realized later they had done).

The column proceeded to describe the life of Ali Shadid, a completely fictional persona living in the West Bank. Rahim constructed the character such that Shadid's life was affected by as many Israeli military maneuvers as could be historically possible, with each incident dramatized and sensationalized. Such is the liberty of fiction writing. It was like "Forrest Gump: The Palestinian Years."

I will not outline and critique each incident line-by-line, for it is not Rahim's interpretation of the actual historical events that offended me so greatly; I know quite well that each Israeli military maneuver and Palestinian act of violence has been interpreted differently by each party to its own advantage. Rather, I criticize the use of fiction on the opinion page of a daily newspaper. Fiction is a worthy medium, yet it has its place: in the literary magazine, not the newspaper.

Rahim himself should have known his argument would have been more effective and taken much more seriously if not presented as a fictional account.

But the majority of my criticism is aimed at the 'Prince' editors. The editors have the power to refuse a submission for publication. And as we saw from my friend's unprinted letter and Mitchell's several unprinted submissions, they do not refrain from wielding that power. Why, then, did they print Rahim's sensationalized, fictional piece? (And moreover attach a misleading headline that suggests the column will use facts to debunk prevailing fictional notions of the Palestinian experience?)

Printing Rahim's April 12 column weakened the credibility of the 'Prince' op-ed page. It signaled to readers that the 'Prince' op-ed page does not hold submissions to the rules of responsible journalism, and thereby exposed every other piece that has ever run on the op-ed page to questions of legitimacy. As my friend wrote, "The publication of this article represents a serious compromise of the newspaper's journalistic standards and an insult to readers' abilities to think critically." As a fellow columnist, I would add that the publication robs other pieces of the legitimacy presupposed by readers.

That is why I contemplated resigning, to protest the publication of Rahim's April 12 piece. I wasn't certain I wanted my own writings and opinions to be mistakenly lumped with such journalistic indignities.

At the same time, I didn't want to relinquish my soapbox. The 'Prince' op-ed page remains the most widely read forum for opinion in the campus community. My resignation would reach a far smaller audience. I believed it more productive to continue in my position and use my biweekly 650 words to present my objection.

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So here it is, for all to see. I would like to believe the 'Prince' editors have restored some of their credibility by printing this column. I hope it gives future columnists confidence that appearing on this page demonstrates association with responsible journalism. Julie Straus is a Wilson School major from Potomac, Md. She can be reached at straus@princeton.edu.