LETTER: Strip club ads not free speech

Editor,

I would like to respond to the silly editorial by Angela Williams defending the running of ads for TD's Showclub and Fantasy World in the Lobo.

First of all, this is not a First Amendment issue. Williams seems to think that by allowing TD's and Fantasy World to publish their ads in the Lobo she is courageously defending their right to free speech. But advertising is not generally protected speech. An advertiser does not have a right to publish ads in any venue he or she wants, only in some venue or other - if even that. And surely publications have the right to exclude ads if they deem them inconsistent with their mission or inappropriate for their readership. Seventeen Magazine, for example, is not required to publish cigarette or alcohol ads.

Second, it's rather condescending to tell your readers that, "it is not my job to shelter the University campus community from the real world." We aren't asking to be sheltered from anything, and we don't need Ms. Williams to teach us what the real world is like. The issue, for me at least, is not that the ads are offensive or in bad taste - which they are.

The issue, rather, is that the Daily Lobo represents the entire University - students, faculty, and staff alike. For one thing, it is substantially supported by student activity fees. A decision by a publication to run an ad for a business is a decision to provide support for that business in the community. There are some of us at UNM who just don't want to be pimping for TD's and Fantasy World.

I suspect that the Lobo is actually motivated to publish these ads, not by a noble concern to honor the rights of the advertisers, but because it needs the money. If the Lobo can't meet its budget without revenue from this kind of advertising, it ought to raise the issue with ASUNM and see if it can get them to increase its allotment of student activity fees.

John Taber

UNM faculty

Editor's Note: The Daily Lobo is mainly funded by student-sold advertising revenue.