FOOLISHNESS

To the Editors of The Crimson:

We noticed a recent news report concerning a group of Harvard students who set out to prove that the news media can be "fooled." In this instance, a group pretended to support Governor George Wallace and went so far as telling media representatives that there was a large pro-Wallace contingent on campus.

Of course, we do not overlook the good humor obvious in this "experiment," and we realize that to pounce too ponderously on certain points could be counterproductive. Nevertheless, with an honest intent not to appear overly-serious, misanthropic or even argumentative, we must question the appropriateness of this "experiment."

On one hand, votes can be swayed by the dissemination of misinformation; would the Harvard pranksters be pleased to learn that even one voter had shifted his allegiance to Governor Wallace on the basis of their "endorsement"?

On the other hand--and this is a far larger concern--what can be accomplished by misleading the media? By now it seems cliche merely to point to certain human realities of the media, including their accessibility to those who would mislead them. Simply to demonstrate the gullability of any human system is, in the final analysis, meaningless. A far more worthwhile program would be to emphasize the need for truthfulness and straightforwardness by all media users, even at the risk of not making self-fulfilling prophesies. John O. Northrop   Despina Vodantis   Birmingham, Alabama Board of Education.