But cheap sensationalism does sell magazines and generate discussion. I'd be surprised if there weren't pages and pages of letters to the editor
That's the theory of practice that my school's newspaper operates under. There is a Neanderthal that can barely put two coherent sentences together which was given a weekly opinion column. He's weighed in on a variety of topics from the necessity of promiscuity--you are a "nerd" (his words)if you aren't promiscuous every weekend--to how homosexuals don't belong in "his beloved Marine Corps." It generates weekly discussion along the lines of "What the hell did that asshole write this week?" If we didn't know better--and weren't in the middle of Indiana--we would think that it was a big joke, what with its absurdity. It's in poor taste for a school newspaper (with low expectations of quality), but it's definitely in poor taste for a national magazine (with some semblance of respect). Magazines don't have free reign to publish whatever they want; they rely on advertisers for funding. If the opinions published are too inflammatory, advertisers will disassociate themselves with the magazine. They don't have free reign under a Pulliam grant funding and aren't run by a Pulliam brat(as our newspaper is). Zach