Columbia President: Due to Explosion of the Internet We Must Have More State-Controlled Media

Since the mainstream media is losing its market dominance, this clown calls for government support of media, citing China's government news agencies and the BBC. Sure, just what we need when we're stating at trillion-dollar annual deficits: More money thrown at media outlets that already parrot the left's talking points of the day.

The idea of public funding for the press stirs deep unease in American culture. To many it seems inconsistent with our strong commitment, embodied in the First Amendment, to having a free press capable of speaking truth to power and to all of us. This press is a kind of public trust, a fourth branch of government. Can it be trusted when the state helps pay for it?

No, it can't. All one needs to do is listen to a day of NPR programming or watch a Bill Moyers special on PBS to know these outlets are saturated with liberal propaganda.

Ironically, we already depend to some extent on publicly funded foreign news media for much of our international news—especially through broadcasts of the BBC and BBC World Service on PBS and NPR. Such news comes to us courtesy of British citizens who pay a TV license fee to support the BBC and taxes to support the World Service. The reliable public funding structure, as well as a set of professional norms that protect editorial freedom, has yielded a highly respected and globally powerful journalistic institution.

Sure, just one that can't be trusted.

Indeed, it gets funnier.

There are examples of other institutions in the U.S. where state support does not translate into official control. The most compelling are our public universities and our federal programs for dispensing billions of dollars annually for research. Those of us in public and private research universities care every bit as much about academic freedom as journalists care about a free press.

Oh, and we know how academic research never comes with any political bias attached.

Now who does Bollinger cite as great examples of of strong media?

To me a key priority is to strengthen our public broadcasting role in the global arena. In today's rapidly globalizing and interconnected world, other countries are developing a strong media presence. In addition to the BBC, there is China's CCTV and Xinhua news, as well as Qatar's Al Jazeera.

Sure, never any bias or censorship with those esteemed media giants.

Shameless Israel Basher Gets Tenured at Columbia

It should come as no surprise that a school that so openly welcomed the madman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a couple of years ago would tenure, undeservedly, to an open hater of Israel.

Compounding the insult, the folks at the esteemed Ivy League university went about their duplicity in hush-hush fashion, lest anyone know they're just fine with an anti-Semitic, anti-gay creep being tenured.

Just disgraceful.

JOSEPH Massad's scholarly contribution during his decade as a faculty member of Columbia University's Middle East Studies Department may be summed up as follows: Israel is racist, and homosexuality is an insidious Western invention.

Yet that was enough for Columbia, which officially -- if quietly -- awarded Massad tenure earlier this month.

Columbia's process for reviewing tenure candidates is as rigorous as any Ivy League school's. Ordinarily, an academic of Massad's caliber would be bounced from Morningside Heights. And in fact, the system did work -- it denied Massad tenure two years ago.

But now the school's academic standards have succumbed to ideological tensions and campus politics -- in what appears to be a remarkable manipulation of the tenure process and a breach of fiduciary trust.

Read on for an eye-opening look at Massad.

If fecklessness were an academic pursuit, Columbia President Lee Bollinger would be at the head of the class.

Previously.

Columbia Professor Finds Noose Outside Office Door

We'll first condemn this act if indeed someone at Columbia hung a noose outside the door of a black professor as a means of intimidation. Still, I can't help be suspicious about the convenient timing of this incident and the Jena 6 case.

It's not as if there haven't been phony cases of alleged bias on college campuses of late.

Black Columbia professor finds noose at office

A black professor at Columbia University's Teachers College found a hangman's noose on her office door yesterday, an act that university officials immediately condemned and reported to police.

"The Teachers College community and I deplore this hateful act, which violates every Teachers College and societal norm," Susan Fuhrman, president of the college, said in a statement.

The professor who was targeted, faculty and students said, has distinguished herself as a scholar in race relations. Neither police nor the college identified the 44-year-old professor.

"She's very passionate about social justice and equality," said Shawn Maxam, 26, of Brooklyn, who is studying music education and sociology education at Teachers College. "I'm not surprised or shocked. There are issues surrounding race and class at Teachers College."

Other students said they were hurt after learning of the incident.

"I'm shocked," said Nichole Henry, 23, who is studying to become a physical education teacher. "For a hate crime to go down at Teachers College, this is such a diverse school.

"I can't believe it. It's really disappointing. It hurts."

Again, such an act is deplorable, but is it beyond the realm of possibility this teacher is trying to promote a cause and decided to stage this incident?

Debbie Sonu, 31, a fourth-year doctoral student in urban education, said she was disappointed about the incident but encouraged by the school's swift response.

"It's a wake-up call," Sonu said.

She made reference to the case of the six black teenagers in Jena, La., who civil rights activists have said were treated unfairly by the local criminal justice system and prosecuted overzealously when fights along racial lines broke out at their school last year.

Take a look at the volume of stories currently available about this story. If by chance this incident was staged by the professor or another school employee, will there be a comparable wave of reports? Or will we hear gibberish about how we must understand what drove someone to perpetrate a hoax?

The New York Post identifies the professor as Madonna Constantine and suggests the possible suspect is another professor.

Sources said the sickening act targeting award-winning author and psychologist Madonna Constantine, 44, may stem from a bitter academic dispute with a white rival professor.

"They're investigating whether another professor put the noose there rather than a student," one source said. "They have someone they're looking at, another professor who had a rivalry with her and was jealous over the work she did."

Coming on the heels of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia, this is a rather curious take.

Another student tied the incident to the university's infamous invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at the school last month.

"This is same Columbia that let a murder[er] and racist [speak] in a public forum and the crowd cheered him. It begs the question: Is Columbia not encouraging this type of behavior?" the student wrote on the Web.

Constantine could not be reached for comment. She taught at Ohio State University before Columbia.

According to the only entry about her on the Web site "Rate My Professors,"Dr. Constantine is fun and informative . . . a bit biased and something of a feminazi, but not to any offensive extent."

Constantine is the author of this book.

Video from WNBC here.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger had a statement.

"This is an assault on African Americans and therefore it is an assault on every one of us," Bollinger said in a statement. "I know I speak on behalf of every member of our communities in condemning this horrible action."

More from the Columbia Spectator.

Iran Universities Denounce Bollinger

You have to love the spin from the state-controlled Iranian media, seeming parroting nutroots blather.

Iranian universities, MPs denounce Columbia U. president

TEHRAN -- Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s insult to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad seriously lowered the status of the university, MP Kazem Jalali said here on Tuesday.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a Majlis session, Jalali said Bollinger was goaded on by the Zionists and the U.S. neoconservatives.

Ahmadinejad delivered a speech on Monday at New York’s Columbia University.

The school’s president used disrespectful epithets in his introduction of the Iranian president.

Ahmadinejad responded by saying that Bollinger’s remarks were an insult to the intelligence of the audience, adding that that he had fallen under the influence of hostile elements in the U.S. press and political scene.

I get the sense we may be seeing some riots soon. Probably Friday.

Meanwhile, the presidents of six leading Iranian universities wrote a letter to Bollinger, criticizing him for insulting the Iranian president.

“Your insult to the president of a country with a population of 72 million and 7000 years of civilization and culture in an academic milieu is shameful,” the letter said.

“Although it seems that you uttered those sentences, which were filled with hostile sentiments, under strong pressure from the media, what is regretful and surprising is the fact that the media’s owners and policymakers (were allowed to) determine the contents of the (introductory) speech of the president of a prestigious university.”

Here's a few questions they have for Bollinger. I wonder where I've heard this stuff before?

Why has the U.S. been unable to locate Osama bin Laden, despite all its sophisticated equipment?

What do you have to say about the longstanding friendship between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family and their cooperation in the oil industry?

What do you think about Bush’s efforts to undermine the 9/11 investigation?