UB alumnus and Pulitzer Prizewinning political cartoonist Tom Toles returned home to Buffalo this past Saturday for a conference on censorship in the media.
A renowned cartoonist for the Washington Post, Toles was the main presenter at the Mason O. Damon Auditorium in the Central Buffalo Library. His dissertation, "On the Front Lines: Journalists assess the new censorship" was free and open to the public.
According to Toles, censorship has become a key issue in today's society.
"Every government tries, for its own political needs, to control information and present it to us to their best advantage," he said. "The press' job has always been to get as much genuine information out of what the government is actually doing, and provide it to the public. This relationship has become... out of balance."
Toles may now be nationally accredited, but his roots are local. He began his political cartoon career with The Spectrum, later working for the The Buffalo Courier Express and The Buffalo News.
According to Toles, there has been a record increase in the amount of information classified by the current administration, as well as amplified surveillance and censorship.
Such acts, he said, infringe upon the rights delineated in the First Amendment. According to Toles, the most important aspect of free speech should be "the ability to openly and vigorously criticize the government and the people who are in it."
"The First Amendment is something much more than just a generic freedom," he said. "It is, in fact, the lifeblood of a functioning democracy. A democracy works, and can only work, when there is engaged public discussion based on accurate information."
The panel discussion following Toles' presentation addressed several issues facing the press. On board was Margaret Sullivan, editor in chief of the The Buffalo News, Geoff Kelly, editor of Artvoice and Lee Coppola, dean of the school of journalism and mass communication at St. Bonaventure University.
Kelly encouraged an attitude of skepticism towards all news sources, but especially towards official stories released by the government.
"The government," he said, "is altogether too determined to be correct to be a dependable source of (unbiased) information."
Coppola, on the other hand, spoke of a dampening "filter-down effect," which occurs when over-zealous school officials limit what students are allowed to publish too strictly. Because of this, he said that many journalism students lack the bravery and inquisitive spirit that are essential qualities in journalism.
"(Students) come to journalism school, thinking for the most part that whatever bureaucracy says, whatever authority says, must be correct," Coppola said. "It makes me fearful for the courage of future journalists."
The audience applauded both Toles' solo feature presentation and the panel discussion.
Edward Batchelder, UB ESL instructor, noted that the session seemed to be heavily attended by those whose opinions were already similar to the opinions of those on the panel.
"I think that one of the dangers of these types of things," he said, "is that the people who come to them are already in such agreement with the people on the panel that it can become what's called preaching to the choir, or a sort of a self-congratulations session."
He did, however, enjoy the conference, and felt that he had learned from it.
"The fact that they're now prosecuting people for receiving classified information - that was a new fact for me," Batchelder said. "So there was some valuable information also."
Bruce Jackson, distinguished professor of American studies at UB, said that he greatly enjoyed the message as well as a chance to hear Toles.
"Tom Toles is not only the best cartoonist in America, he's also one of the most astute political thinkers I know," Jackson said. "I love hearing him talk about things as wide-ranging as the state of journalism, the state of government, and the great contribution the Internet has made to our developing world."
Hamburg resident Karen Sherwood, a retired Nichols schoolteacher, also appreciated the chance to listen to what Toles had to say.
"It's always wonderful to hear Tom Toles, and to see the creativity he has in presenting issues in a way that we can all react to," she said.
For Sherwood, the most vital point made at the conference is to be skeptical, to look for trends and hidden meanings.
Her words were reminiscent of Kelly, who also quoted Thomas Jefferson, saying, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
