It was a bad idea to begin with, and fortunately Athletic Director Bill Moos and other top administrators realized their proposed changes to the University’s broadcast policy would do more harm than good.
At a time when our Duck athletes, and even their Beaver counterparts, are strutting proudly in the national spotlight, it’s understandable that the University’s top administrators are feeling a little proud. But for those who fly too high, there’s always a chance of getting burned, and this University was soundly burned by national journalism groups and even the ACLU for proposing to limit the media to only 20 seconds of footage and 20 seconds of interviews for two days after any Duck game.
To be fair, the Athletic Department was attempting only to deal with one news show, local broadcaster KVAL’s “Inside the PAC,” that it and its contractee ESPN believed was an infringement on the exclusive broadcast rights of the cable sports-news channel. But its heavy-handed approach was met with the ire of the journalism community and the criticism of almost every member of the media in the state.
Journalists and anyone interested in the Ducks had a legitimate reason to be critical of the policy. Not only did it raise concerns that the University was ignoring constitutional rights, but it also opened the University to speculation that it was setting a policy to protect lucrative contract deals.
So while it may make sense that the University is taking a more active and vigorous stance on protecting and managing its image because of the national prominence it has achieved through athletics, our administration and Athletic Department must remember that that same recognition is a double-edged sword. Finally near the top in the world of intercollegiate athletics, our University leaders need to realize they must hold themselves and this institution to a higher standard as well, or they will face again the firestorm of national and local criticism their misguided media policy received.
That proposal made the University look foolish, and there is a risk the other instruments of the University’s hype machine may have the same result. Right now, motorists in the California Bay Area and Los Angeles are being treated to billboards touting the athletic prowess of Ducks Rashad Bauman and Maurice Morris. These follow an imposing billboard of Joey “Heisman” Harrington in New York City. One wonders why generous donors would spend thousands of dollars to erect the billboards in places where folks likely cannot even pronounce “Oregon” or “Willamette” correctly. Is it an attempt to intimidate other athletes of the Pac-10 in their home cities or to drum up a wider fan base for Oregon football outside the state? Either reason is rather doubtful, and so it likely is an attempt to create a football legacy on one record season, a bowl game victory and pure hype.
Legacies aren’t bought — they are earned. The University should keep in mind that this campaign will look arrogant and foolish if this upcoming football season falls flat.

Competition good for campus media
It is good to hear that the Oregon Voice magazine will be resurrected. While the publication’s new backers admit they won’t have a new issue out for quite some time, they appear dedicated to giving new life to the troubled magazine.
Any community benefits by vibrant and vocal news outlets, and while in recent memory the Voice never really has been a heavy hitter in campus news and politics, it is encouraging to hear that some students think they can turn the now-defunct paper into a quality product. For a school with supposedly one of the best journalism programs on the West Coast, it was somewhat perplexing to see the Oregon Voice steadily decline in quality to the point of irrelevance and become the butt of constant jokes by the other campus magazine, the Oregon Commentator.
These jokes most likely will not end, as most on the staff of the new Voice are former Commentator staffers, but one can hope that will mean the jokes won’t be one-sided.
The new editors of the magazine say the Voice will be a mix of left-leaning news features and entertainment stories. And while this is definitely not a new formula for the Eugene community, at least one more news outlet on campus will, ideally, improve the quality of all campus publications.