College Paper

The Times article (Dec. 7) regarding the controversy surrounding the Harbor College Hawk was informative but incomplete.

The Hawk is not an independent student-run publication; it is self-described as “a learning experience, offered under the college journalism instructional program.”

We at the Anti-Defamation League urged, and the Community College Board of Trustees agreed, that future reporters ought to learn more about their profession than that hate can be set in type.

Additionally, the columns that caused us to protest . . . concerned not only the denial of the Holocaust but also the newspaper’s publication of misinformation. The Hawk has described the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a Communist and Popes John XXIII and Paul VI were criticized for having “desecrated” the Catholic Church.

The weekly publication of incoherent hatred . . . flouts every standard of professional journalism. The Canon of Ethics of Sigma Delta Chi, incorporated into the Community College District’s rules, mandates that journalists must “serve the truth . . . learn and report the facts and perform with intelligence, objectivity, accuracy and fairness. . . .”

The Hawk ignored these canons at every turn. It allowed its pages to be used as a conduit for the bigotry of off-campus extremists. The way the Hawk was run suggests that it needed only an attorney to check for libel. Every vestige of editorial responsibility was abdicated.

DAVID A. LEHRER HARVEY B. SCHECHTER Los Angeles Lehrer is Western states counsel and Schecter is regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.