The Daily Mississippian staff to print retraction, apology for inflammatory ad

An advertisement that ran in today’s print edition of The Daily Mississippian contained a racist message.

The ad (pictured at left) was paid for by the New Century Group and promotes American Renaissance, a monthly magazine launched in 1991 that espouses incendiary views about immigration and race relations.

The Daily Mississippian advertising staff will include a retraction and apology for the advertisement in Monday’s edition of the paper.

Melanie Wadkins, advertising manager for the S. Gale Denley Student Media Center, said American Renaissance will be refunded the $220.50 paid for the three-column, 10 inch ad.

Wadkins, who is the staff adviser for the SMC advertising staff, said she does not make decisions concerning advertising content. That responsibility lies with the student employees.

“Everything submitted to the paper is supposed to be looked at by the student staff,” Wadkins said. “In this case, it wasn’t.

“After the ad came in by e-mail, no student on staff raised a question or concern in the course of producing it. I generally refer questionable ads to the editor for approval. This was not brought to my attention at all,” Wadkins said. “It was an honest mistake; it certainly was not intentional.”

Advertising representative Ronald Odom, a senior journalism major from Bartlett, Tenn., was contacted via telephone Wednesday by a representative of the Oakland, Va.-based American Renaissance.

Although the policy is for advertising representatives to proof the ads they sell, Odom said he did not see the ad before it ran today.

“With pre-made ads, there’s really not a lot of proofing because the customer sends it the way they want it,” Odom said. “It just kind of snuck through the cracks between advertising, creative services, editorial and into the paper. I’m sure if someone had read it, it would have definitely been taken care of ahead of time.”

The Daily Mississippian Editor, Emery Carrington, said the advertising staff has consulted with her in the past regarding potentially inflammatory ads, but she was not contacted in this case.

“Editorial and advertising are separate entities; the editorial staff does not like being tied up with the money-making aspect of the newspaper because we want to keep our news and other stories free of bias,” Carrington said. “We do not like the intermixing of advertising and editorial departments of the newspaper and keep them separate as possible.

“This ad’s message was completely unacceptable and is something that The Daily Mississippian staff does not condone, believe in or support,” Carrington said. “During the final process of sending the paper to press, I did not read the ad. I do not usually read ad copy when I’m putting the newspaper to bed.

“At the same time, I’m disappointed that I didn’t read over this because it is unacceptable content that the public will understandably take as offensive and assume that it was approved by us.”

Carrington said The Daily Mississippian staff does not agree with the message contained in the ad.

“We have repeatedly spoken out against hate and racism in this newspaper,” Carrington said.

“I think this university has come a long way and has become intolerant of messages such as those that American Renaissance spreads. The university, the newspaper and the administration do not condone it. I hope the readers will understand that this message would have never appeared in our newspaper under normal circumstances.”

Odom also said the advertisement does not reflect his attitudes or those of his colleagues.

“The staff at The Daily Mississippian is a very diverse group, and we have grown to be a family," Odom said. "This ad does not reflect the relationships we share with each other as a diverse group of students."

“I’m very disappointed, and I’m sorry that it ran because it’s extremely inflammatory and it doesn’t reflect the views of anyone who works here,” Wadkins said. “The ad and its message offend me greatly.”

“Being an African American student at the university who appreciates the progress we have made from our past, I am offended that this organization would place an ad in our paper to influence the thoughts of our community and try to undo the advancements we have made in race relations,” Odom said.

“Different racial groups are not the cause of friction. The cause of friction in the community are people who call themselves Americans but truly do not agree with our constitution in regards to freedom and the laws about immigration. The U.S. did not become the strongest country in the world by adopting closed-minded views.”

Well said and thorough but I must confess I disagree with more of what you wrote than I agree with.

I like all the folks you mentioned but they are qualifiers....but most welcome nonetheless.

My experience in the third world leads me to distrust that culture coming here en masse.

Nor do I think we should allow everyone in here legal or otherwise on the scale we now do.

The voting records of most immigrants since the 1965 act are not in our favor by a long shot. Continuing that trend to me seems foolish.

Now...I wish those immigrants were more whitebread simply so it would take the race argument out of the equation and we could deal with the issues rationally..

I don't think there is any way to avoid Bilbo comparisons if we attack immigration and in particular the illegal variety given where most of them today come from. My enemies are going to use that. It's their big arrow and we have become hypersensitive to such accusations, That is a critical juncture where you and I diverge btw.

Our population has increased by 1/3rd in just 30 years and 75% of that is due to immigration legal or otherwise. Approximately 1/4 of those are "caucazoids" mostly non-European.

It wouldn't matter where they come from. It's still too much in my view. At this rate will will pass one half billion by 2005 and over half our population will be from post-1970 stock.

Genetics have nothing to do with that though admittedly it would be more apparent were they all Somalis.

I also worry about assimilation. I simply do not see assimilation as a goal anymore for recent immigrants. I took my family to Edwin Warner park today and it was swarmed almost entirely by immigrants.

Kurds...who actually fit my "refugee" design and should be allowed here but they are not assimilating much. Maybe in 50 years. They are mostly muslim which I confess troubles me.

Beacoup Mexicans....who knows how many. Nuff said. No assimilation there that I can see.

Metro Nashville is probably at least 20% new wave immigrants and amongst the Nigerians, Somalis, Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans I would bet the majority are illegal which is a whole nother matter.

As is national security on that same issue.

For me the problem is culture and it is undeniably to some degree race based....but not completely obviously.

That is what makes it so sticky.

In my view, the Poles, Jews, Irish, Scandinavians, Germans, Greeks and Italians who came in waves (smaller) from 1840 to 1920s came from cultures which had much more in common with here than do the current waves from Central America, Asia etc.

To me that is obvious and inescapably racial to some degree but more by timing, geography and fate than by design. It was inevitable that Europe would follow Europeans.

Like I said. You gave a great explanation of your beliefs and I respect that. I had never heard of AR until today and I sort of just glanced at it and saw National Front which I would agree raises eyebrows..lol.

But...I probably am more tolerant of "white" ethnocentricity than you are and I don't really consider the morality of racial identity till it reaches Nazism, Klan, or Nation of Islam proportions.

Our age differences probably play into this.

and after finishing this I've decided to send this freep.

It's just better that way. We southerners have to stick together.

charlie

Hispanic is NOT a race

You kidding right? < / sarcasm >

You must have me confused with somebody else, as nowhere in my post did I say Hispanics were a race.

Reread what I wrote

If my white third generation half Russian son marries a fourth generation black women, their children will not look pasty white like me.

That was my point. In 40 years because of the new generation of immigrants all caucasian people will be a minority, which is fine by me as long as they are Americans first

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