On Monday night, a panel of veteran journalists posed a question Arizona has been waiting to hear the answer to. But a group of noisy protesters ensured that America's Toughest Sheriff never responded to the toughest questions of the night.
Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County sheriff everyone knows and either loves or hates, agreed to sit in front of a panel at the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and field questions from journalists.
For a man accused of avoiding the media, Arpaio seemed to be willing to stick his neck out and address the tough questions surrounding many of his policies, particularly regarding illegal immigration and alleged racial profiling.
We expected the headlines to read: “Arpaio defends stance on controversial immigration practices” or some similar sentiment. Instead, they will read something much more embarrassing — not for Arpaio, but for the journalism school and students who hosted the event.
When Arpaio was asked to address his controversial policies, the crowd at the Cronkite school, young journalists included, sang him off stage with a rewritten version of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Not only did the protesters prevent the sheriff from answering a crucial question, they embarrassed themselves, their school and their profession, and only added fuel to Arpaio’s fire.
On his relationship with the media in Arizona, Arpaio said, “I think they been trying to tear me down for 17 years.” Well, future members of that media didn’t exactly prove him wrong Monday night.
Arpaio is a controversial figure, and naturally, he expects to see protesters at most of his public events. But frankly, the students in attendance discredited journalists everywhere with a few off-key verses and interrupted a question that was bound to get an answer worth listening to.
“This isn’t the way journalists should operate,” Arpaio said in response to the crowd. He’s 100 percent right.
What did the singers accomplish? They looked foolish, and, more importantly, they stopped real reporters from doing their jobs. As Christopher Callahan, dean of the Cronkite school said, “That’s a shame.”
The protesters got no answers out of Arpaio, they just played right into his claims that journalists are just unwilling to listen to opposing opinions or find out the truth.
One of the positive parts of a panel put on by the journalism school was its use of social media: scores of students, faculty members and alumni used Twitter to respond live to the sheriff’s answers. But when the event turned ugly, so did the comments.
One user felt as though the First Amendment panel was “ruined by gross protesters. I am ashamed and embarrassed by you all.” Another said, “‘Protestors’ is not an accurate term for the anti-Arpaio singers. Nothing was protested other than discussion.”
The singing was indicative of one thing: Too many people don’t want to hear real answers. They are so set in their beliefs that they would rather “boo” a public official off the stage than hear a genuine defense of his actions. They are more interested in making a statement and scoring a political point than in having a discussion.
It’s too bad the point that’s been broadcast across the state is that ASU students are incapable of listening.
Arpaio very well might have said something to support protesters’ dislike of him. He may have struggled to give an adequate answer to the tough questions. But we’ll never know.
Those protesters traded the truth for a few minutes of fame and managed to hurt the reputation of journalism students in the process. And that’s a real shame.
