Library lecture draws more than 200 More...

Library lecture draws more than 200

More than 200 high school students and teachers packed the Friends

Meeting Room at the Newport Beach Public Library on Saturday to hear

author Eric Schlosser speak about the craft of investigative

journalism.

Earlier this week, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District

announced that it would not permit fliers advertising Schlosser’s

appearance to be displayed in schools, citing the concerns of some

parents regarding Schlosser’s views on U.S. drug laws. Schlosser, the

author of “Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American

Black Market,” has long been an advocate of decriminalizing

marijuana, although he does not support legalizing the drug.

At the district’s board meeting on Tuesday, a number of parents

had asked that the schools not display the flier. Despite the

controversy over much of Schlosser’s work, however, the event on

Saturday passed without protest.

Schlosser only briefly touched on the issue of censorship during

the hour-long seminar, which was held exclusively for a high school

audience. At one point, he mentioned the biases in the mainstream

media and urged students to seek truth on their own.

“Billions of dollars are being spent to target young consumers

like yourself,” Schlosser said. “You’ve got to learn to see through

those systems that are trying to control you.”