Letters to the Editor
By Daily Bruin Staff
June 3, 2003 9:00 p.m.
The Bruin’s dull coverage doesn’t do event
justice
I read with anticipation the Daily Bruin article,
“Activist author addresses “˜Dam/age’ at
Royce,” (News, May 28) after I heard Arundhati Roy speak at
UCLA.
My not-so-old UCLA journalism professor, Sam Feldman, used to
say writing sports is all about one thing: drama. But when one of
the most unusual, important women in the world comes to visit us in
Westwood ““ an award winning writer, world thinker, architect
and a graceful, brilliant mind ““ doesn’t she and the
UCLA community deserve a report reflecting the drama (usually only
reserved for Bruin basketball) that took place? Instead, the story
that took the eye that day was “Magic show at Hillel leaves
audience awed.”
The story on Roy reads as if the reporter never attended the
event. It captures the Royce program with the enthusiasm and energy
of the bland classifieds. Was the writer in the same place I
was?
Tuesday night Arundhati Roy made me laugh, she made me cry, she
made me think, and she made me angry ““ that was during the
film about her, even before she even came out to speak to us. And
the never-mentioned, huge Royce audience gave Roy at least two
standing ovations.
Maybe Roy should have brought a deck of cards to shuffle as she
spoke. Maybe then this world-renowned woman would have gotten the
appropriate attention from The Bruin.
Andrew Kay Liberman
UCLA Extension
