If I weren’t sensitive to the slang surrounding diverstiy and minority groups, I’d say that The Daily’s coverage of the OKC Pride Celebration in the June 30 edition was pretty “gay.” However, since “gay” is not a synonym for “stupid” – and because it’s mean to call someone stupid – I’ll just say The Daily’s coverage was piss poor and leave it at that.

OK, I’ll admit, my status as a gay journalism student may make me biased. Obviously, my passion is biased towards the support of the Pride Celebration, but let’s look at the facts of The Daily’s coverage.

First, there was no advance story last week. How were people on campus supposed to know when and where and what to attend? That info could have been obtained from the OKC Pride Web site in five minutes. (www.okcpride.org just for future reference.)

Second, Pride is, at the very least, an entire weekend celebration! Coverage omitted the Friday night block party, the concert and festival in Memorial Park on Saturday; indeed the piece omitted every event from the entire weekend except the parade.

The list continues beyond those two points, but this is not a critique of the article for a class, nor is this a personal attack on Ricky Maranon’s writing abilities. But The Daily had ample opportunity to publicize an event celebrating diversity and bring the political discussion of gay rights in general into the public forum of campus discussion and they missed it. Terribly. I know the dog days of summer can weigh us down, but quit being so lazy.

Thanks,

Kelly Brunkhorst

Multidisciplinary studies senior

Dear Editor,

Your story about OU Press layoffs in Tuesday’s Oklahoma Daily correctly stated that the layoffs at the OU Press were not a result of the budget presented by President Boren and adopted at the Regents’ meeting last week.  Because the story alleges a contradiction, I want to clarify that the budget that President Boren presented to the OU Press did not mandate layoffs or furloughs.

The reduction in force at the Press was due to national trends in the sales of books that have affected virtually all publishers in the United States.  Many university presses have been subject to much deeper cuts, and some have been threatened with closure.  We are fortunate by comparison.

When President Boren learned of the timing of the layoffs, he made funds available to the Press to provide 30 days of additional pay for a total of 60 days of pay to give those impacted more time to find other work.   President Boren also asked the University’s Human Resources staff to work very hard to find other jobs at the University for the affected staff.  They also will be first in the recall list if book production and sales improve.  Already the H.R. department at OU has been an enormous help.

I just wanted to cover the record and make clear that the reductions were not due to University directives but because of necessary adjustment to the national book market, which is beyond our control.

Regards,

B. Byron Price

Director

University of Oklahoma Press