Ban Deserved

It was, of course, inevitable that somewhere, some time, a radio announcer should be sentenced for crimes against football, but the atrocity when it did come was particularly offensive. It was the application of the term "putrid" to Barry Wood, Harvard captain and quarterback in the Dartmouth game. The banishment of Ted Husing, from Harvard sports as a result was deserved and the radio announcer's explanation of his trespass on good taste merely adds to his culpability.

Husing says he is "sorry" but he should have said it during the Dartmouth game just after Wood had completed the pass and kicked the goal that won the game. He says he had no idea he was going to offend certain people, but as a matter of fact he has no idea how many people he did offend. He discounts any apology he may have intended by declaring that radio broadcasters must not be "constrained by deference to either side in the sports we cover."

A radio broadcaster as well as a sports writer can always be constrained by decency and courtesy, even if he must make mistakes in description and judgment, and to plead service to the public as any excuse for thoughtlessness or careless use of undeservedly offensive epithets is adding ignorance to bad taste. Neither newspaper nor radio is bound to serve the public to the point of boorishness.

We do not blame Harvard for banishing Husing from campus broadcasting. In view of the announcer's "apology" the ban should be kept on. Daily Sentinel. Ionia, Michigan. Nov. 16, '31.