Censorship or A Matter of Taste? p.

By: M.L. Stein

L.A. Times charged with prior restraint for refusing to print
youth magazine unless sexually explicit paragraph is deleted
THE LOS ANGELES Times has been accused of censorship for forcing a youth paper it prints to kill part of a story involving AIDS prevention in oral sex.
Donna C. Myrow, executive direc-tor of the bimonthly LA Youth, a tabloid written by and for teen-agers, protested the Times' action to publisher David Laventhol and editor Shelby Coffey.
She asserted there was no mention of "prior review" when the Times agreed to print LA Youth free as a community service. The Times insists the issue is not censorship but a matter of taste.
LA Youth, one of a chain of 10 nationwide newspapers for teens, has been supported for several years by various foundations and companies, including the Times Mirror Foundation, the Knight Foundation and Bank of America. Times editorial staffers have served as mentors and writing coaches for the paper.
The Times also has run LA Youth articles on the op-ed page and, according to Myrow, the paper's youngsters have served as sources and have done actual reporting for Times reporters working on gang- and drug-related stories.
Following Myrow's request to Coffey, the Times began printing LA Youth with the April-May 1993 issue.
"We were delighted," Myrow said. "This could save us $30,000 a year."
However, Myrow's delight turned sour when Times community affairs director Lisa Reale objected to a paragraph in the copy of a story by Bernadette Lee about "Club Prophylactive," in which teens learn about safe sex.
The objectional paragraph read in part: "They actually showed [on a video screen] some guy putting a condom on his erect penis. Gross! They showed people having sex."
The rest of the paragraph quoted a flier, handed out at the club, which described in graphic detail how to assure protection from AIDS while having oral sex.
Both Reale and Myrow agreed that Reale had demanded that the paragraph be stricken before the Times would print the issue.
"I took it out because it was either that or we would not get out and we had hired trucks waiting to deliver the papers," Myrow said. "But we had never been told there would be prior review of the paper. We are not the L.A. Times and we are not in their paper. They're just donating printing. We are distributed in 300 public and parochial schools and no one in the school district, the archdiocese or the private sector has ever objected to anything in the paper."
Reale termed the matter a "minor misunderstanding." She said the Times arrangement with LA Youth was approved by others in the paper's community service division "before I got into it. It had not been thought through. This is a taste issue. As a community affairs department of the Times, we are held accountable by parents, teachers and other people."
Reale said that she had asked Myrow to hold off the press run until "we could do some soul-searching" to resolve the standoff, but Myrow retorted that the issue had to be printed on deadline.
Laura Morgan, the Times' chief media spokesperson, commented, "You can call something like this censorship or you can see it for what it is: one party feeling that the deleted paragraph was not appropriate. Printing LA Youth is part of our community outreach program and it has our name on it. We're within our rights to say to [LA Youth], 'You do what you gotta do, but we don't want our name attached to it this time.' "
Morgan referred to the LA Youth notice that the paper was printed through the courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.
Myrow, a former schoolteacher, said, "Being told not to print something is censorship and we were never told before they agreed to print the paper that they would impose editorial policy on us."
However, both Myrow and Reale said they were optimistic about reaching some kind of accord in a meeting to be held with Eugene L. Falk, the Times' executive vice president for administration. If the issue cannot be resolved, Myrow said, "We will withdraw from the arrangement."
Meanwhile, she said, LA Youth has received support for its position from the Freedom Forum and the Journalism Education Association.