OPINION

THE MESA TRIBUNE | OCTOBER 17, 2021

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Freedom of speech needs some leeway

BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ

Tribune Columnist

Today’s revelation should surprise exactly no one: There is a difference between what each of us says in public and what we say in private to friends.

In public, in the workplace helping a customer or via Zoom with a client, we clean things up. We avoid controversy, mind our language, sand the edges off opinions. This is not a fictional self; it is an aspect of who we are. I view it as part of the social contract. In public, most of us agree to put forward our best selves.

Then there’s what happens in private.

I’ve had beers with conservative politicians who drop f-bombs. Played golf with “woker than thou” progressives who comment on the cart girl’s chest. I’ve been emailed a thousand obscene memes and a thousand jokes about Jews and every other ethnicity on the planet.

I’ve said countless things in private that, should I express them in this column, would surely get me fired.

Which brings us to suddenly former Las Vegas Raiders football coach Jon Gruden, embattled comedian Dave Chappelle, and the confusing state of life in 2021.

Gruden resigned last week after a trove of years-old personal emails between him and some guy friends, including Bruce Allen, then-President of the Washington Football Team, became public as part of an NFL investigation into Washington’s toxic workplace culture.

Gruden played no part in that culture, having never worked for the team, but he did “casually and frequently (unleash) misogynistic and homophobic language over several years to denigrate people,” according to the New York Times.

Among those people? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, labeled by Gruden as a “clueless anti football pussy” and DeMaurice Smith, head of the NFL players union, a black man Gruden said “has lips the size of michellin [sic] tires.”

The NFL immediately condemned that email – which Gruden wrote in 2010 – as “appalling, abhorrent and wholly contrary to the NFL’s values.”

Then the league went right back to gridiron games involving highly compensated domestic abusers, sexual violators and assorted other miscreants.

Little shocks me about Gruden, a macho jackass in private who kept his offensive ideas to himself for his 8-year run on “Monday Night Football.” Had Gruden voiced unleashed a tirade on air, I would have supported firing him.

What I don’t support is the Opinion Police coming for him based on decade-old private emails.

There’s a difference between repugnant opinions kept to ourselves or shared with friends, and what we do and say around everyone else. If the new American social contract demands pristine behavior 24/7, who among us can meet that standard? Then there’s Chappelle. The very definition of a comedian is someone who has no filter, who says in public that which none of us dares speak.

Comedians’ jokes offend, but they also serve as human WD-40, a lubricant between people and ideas. If Chappelle’s joking about the gay and trans community offends, well, that’s literally in his job description.

The unwritten rule seems to be that it’s fine for Chappelle to joke about black people, because he’s black. In the same vein, I can joke about Jews because my name is Leibowitz.

But stray out of your lane, be offensive about a group to which you don’t belong, and you’ll be cancelled, pronto.

I’d advocate for a different standard, a culture where freedom of speech includes leeway for time and place, private versus public. I’d also prefer a culture that can still take a joke.

Under the new rules, it’s only a matter of time before the Opinion Police come for all of us, no matter how polite we think, act or speak. ■

American journalism needs reforms

BY JD HAYWORTH Tribune Columnist

With Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending “sharknado” apparently watered down by members of his own party, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew just who to blame: the reporters who cover the proceedings under the Capitol Dome.

“I think you all could do a better job of selling it, to be frank with you,” Pelosi said.

Got that?

Speaker Pelosi believes that the press corps is just an unelected part of her House Democrat Caucus, on hand to advocate for the left - not to report stories objectively.

And based on recent history, she’s absolutely right.

Corporate media made a collective decision in 2016: our nation needed its first female president, and with their unremittingly sympathetic reporting, Hillary Clinton would make history “her story.” Those filling the newsrooms and executive suites regarded Donald Trump as an egomaniacal outsider.

From the day in 2015 when he took a Trump Tower escalator to speak to a waiting crowd and announce his candidacy, the press escalated its attacks on the intriguing political novice, growing increasingly flummoxed as Trump soon became the GOP frontrunner.

Then, on Election Night, the unthinkable happened: Donald John Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States.

Not only did the alphabet networks have trouble minding their p’s and q’s, but the taxpayer-financed Voice of America (VOA) dissolved into the tears of a clown. Amanda Bennett, then the VOA Director, had ordered the production of a celebratory documentary, “America’s First Woman President,” to be aired once the votes were counted and the inevitable had occurred.

When the inevitable yielded to the improbable, Bennett began to cry, and other VOA staffers began to scramble, scurrying to fill the gap with somber live coverage that supplanted the joyous pre-produced programming originally planned.

Though the press partisans came emotionally undone over the 2016 election results, they were far from done with Donald Trump. He may have been sworn in, but he became a figure to be sworn at, with journalistic coverage full of sound, fury, and falsehoods.

Russiagate. Kids in cages. Two weeks to flatten the curve. Voter ID is racist. Vote fraud is rare. The 2020 Election was secure.

To those journalistic themes and scores more, Trump offered a two word response: “Fake news.”

Ben Rhodes, a one-time aspiring novelist who was Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications and whose brother David was president of CBS News, confessed to the “New York Times Magazine” that the successful messaging of the US-Iran nuke deal and the diplomatic recognition of Communist Cuba depended upon the creation of compelling narratives. Not necessarily factual, nor true, but “compelling.”

And those narratives were served up to a group of sympathetic reporters gull-

Redistricting chair: We want to hear from you

BY ERIKA SCHUPAK NEUBERG

Tribune Guest Writer

Iam the Independent, politically unaffiliated chair of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. My colleagues and I are tasked with redrawing Arizona’s congressional and state legislative district lines, a process that occurs every 10 years and serves as the boundaries from which our state and federal representatives seek elected office to represent us, individually and collectively.

Your AIRC has been hard at work preparing for the consequential next step of drawing draft maps. We have built a talented and diverse staff whose members share deep state knowledge and speak the same languages as the communities they are reaching out to.

We have gathered academics, demographers, legal consultants, mapping consultants, and others who, in a relatively short time, have seamlessly collaborated to advise us on meeting our obligations under the United States and Arizona Constitutions. We have studied our state’s racial and ethnic diversity, migration trends, economic drivers, natural resources, and com-

HAYWORTH from page 26

ible enough to swallow them hook, line, and sinker.

Ben Rhodes didn’t call those journalists “gullible,”— he called them know nothings. He described the average reporter in the White House Press Corps as someone “27 years old” whose “only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns.”

Americans have learned a little something about the politicization of the press: it is real, it is rabid, and it is radical. What’s more, it has prompted a reaction of revulsion.

July brought these results from a Gallup Poll: Americans with “quite a lot” or a “great deal” of confidence in newspapers totaled just 21 percent. For television it was even lower: only 16 percent.

The prevailing political view of the press – Orange man bad, senile man superb – jeopardizes American journalism, which badly needs reform, except in the eyes of journalists. ■

ments from the citizens as to what links us together as communities of interest. We hope the general public continues to take advantage of the trove of civic-minded information provided on the AIRC’s website under the newsroom link.

Since summer, we have engaged in an extensive listening tour to identify our state’s various “communities of interest” and hear from citizens as to what they believe is important in drawing district lines. I was honored to attend each of the 19 public hearings to date across 47 locations and thank the over 1,000 dedicated citizens who participated.

To be honest, I did not know what to expect at these meetings; we so often see rancor, negativity, and political extremism on traditional and social media. I am proud to say, however, that civic engagement in Arizona is strong.

Time and again, individuals, diverse in so many ways, took turns respectfully and passionately expressing their views. We heard about the responsiveness (or lack thereof) of our local, state, and federal elected leaders. We learned of historical, geographical, and economic connections, such as the Copper Corridor, that unite us.

We were reminded that political compromise is still possible, such as in Yuma,

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where Republican leaders spoke so positively of their Democratic colleagues, and vice versa. They demonstrated how to turn division into an asset by capitalizing on additional representation.

We heard from rural communities fearful that urban growth will impinge on their way of life. And we were reminded that too many minority communities still feel marginalized in their political representation.

Much work remains. The AIRC will continue to hold public meetings throughout the process. The maps will be drawn in a transparent manner in accordance with our constitutions. You can follow each and every step of the map-drawing process live; up-to-date information with instructions for how to participate can be found on our website or social media platforms.

Citizens can submit maps, leaving no room for interpretation as to what is important to you as to the constitutional criteria. You do not need to attend a meeting to submit your comments; simply visit irc. az.gov and you will be directed to the appropriate links. The AIRC is open 24/7 for feedback in the language that is most com-

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fortable for you to express your thoughts.

Please consider attending an upcoming hearing, or at minimum taking the time to share your feedback. Our sincere goal is for all citizens of Arizona to be heard and counted. We are committed to conducting a transparent, ethical process that fosters as much confidence-building and trust as possible.

I appreciate that there is still much to learn, and take seriously our obligation to protect every citizen’s right to representation. We have a once-in-a-decade opportunity to draw legislative and congressional maps that reflect the rich and diverse interests of our citizenry and of our shared home, Arizona. On behalf of all the IRC Commissioners, I look forward to hearing from you.

Erika Schupak Neuberg is an Independent and was unanimously elected by her peers to be the volunteer chair of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. She is a graduate of Colorado College, and earned a master’s degree and doctorate in psychology from

Arizona State University. ■

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