Someone always disagrees with us. That’s to be expected.

But one group’s recent disagreement with the Daily has been larger and more focused than most.

The Taiwanese Student Association recently placed a series of advertisements in the Daily regarding the Taiwanese elections. The ad stated the following:

“Keep Taiwan Safe and Free. Communist China’s Military Exercise Threaten the 21 Million people in Taiwan. The Republic of China invites you to witness the First Democratic Presidential Election in our Country’s History, March 23, 1996. Help us all learn democracy.”

Not too surprisingly, many Chinese students on campus were upset by the series of ads.

In fact, about 30 of these students sent me e-mail to voice their complaints. That’s a rather large response for the Daily to receive on one issue.

The main contention of the students seemed to be that they were upset that the newspaper would publish a strong political advertisement that potentially caused strained relations between two different groups on campus.

My first reaction to the complaints was what about the First Amendment?

My second reaction was that I felt many of the students who wrote to me didn’t fully understand the role the Daily fills on campus and in Ames. My authority with the Daily ends with its editorial coverage.

The fact that nearly all of the complaints were addressed to me and not to the Daily’s advertising manager told me that those who were upset were falsely associating the newsroom’s beliefs and ideologies with that of the paid advertisements.

Many people said they were saddened that the Daily would run such political advertisements, and even more said they felt upset that the Daily was helping to strain the tensions between Taiwanese students and Chinese students.

Again this goes back to understanding the role of the newspaper on campus.

In simplest terms, the Daily is a forum for news and opinions pertaining to Iowa State University. The Daily is also a forum that provides advertising to businesses, groups and individuals of this community.

In regards to what gets printed in the newspaper and what doesn’t, the Daily’s initial standards are similar for both its editorial content and its advertising content: both must first be legal to print.

The newspaper cannot damage a person’s good name or reputation without reason.

Secondly, both must be of good taste. This standard varies according to people’s opinions.

As far as news content goes, this means excessive use of profanities, or blatantly sexist or racist opinions will not be published.

What constitutes as good or poor taste for advertisements is decided by the advertising manager and the advertising staff.

Judging the Taiwanese advertisements by the newsroom’s standards, I don’t find the ads to be in poor taste.

If a newsroom columnist would have chosen to write a pro-Taiwanese column, it would have been published as well. This does not mean that the newspaper is against Chinese students.

Using the previously mentioned standards, the Daily’s advertising section is open to anybody who wants to advertise — including Chinese students. And if a columnist would have chosen to write a pro-Chinese column, it too would have been published.

It is not the role of the newspaper to smooth over conflicts that exist on campus and in the world. And to ignore such conflicts would be contrary to the main job of the media in our society, which is to bring such issues into the public forum.

That’s my ideal opinion of the issue, but it is admittedly a little more complex than that. It’s easy to talk about the right of the Daily to publish whatever it wants, until the Daily publishes something that offends you personally.

I was personally offended and disgusted when the Daily chose to publish an advertising insert that denounced abortion.

Many people are offended by the fact that the Daily publishes so many ads pertaining to alcohol consumption.

Just because we can publish nearly whatever we want, doesn’t mean we should ever go out of our way to offend anyone.

To counter this, every newspaper has different standards about what it will and will not publish. From what I know, the Daily’s standards are more liberal than many newspapers. This doesn’t mean that the complaints from the Chinese students have been ignored.

Hopefully the issue has been a learning experience for both sides. For the upset students, hopefully they now have a better understanding of the media’s policies, which admittedly are sometimes cruel.

As for the Daily, it has once again been reminded of the need to be sensitive and at least aware of the issues affecting the university community.

Troy McCullough is a senior in journalism mass communication from Pleasantville. He is the editor in chief of the Daily.