Quote:
Originally posted by bolingbaker
The reason the young man was able to publish this article is that he is an editor of the paper. The reason he is on the staff is that the owner of the paper is Greek, and he solicited fraternities to provide members for his staff. More often than not, these campus papers are staffed with virulently anti-Greek students. It wouldn't matter how many letters we wrote, or how much we complained, they'd laugh and continue being hateful.
The lesson for us is to actively infiltrate these campus papers with good people. They're always looking for capable writers, editors, sales people, designers. Once upon a time, journalists and Journalism reflected the mainstream of American values and respect for its institutions. Today, far too often, journalism is the safe harbor for wacko, agenda-driven radicals and anti-tradition extremists.
There is no Journalism School at FSU. In this particular case, this specific young man was chosen by his fraternity, told that he was going to join the newspaper staff, and delivered to the paper's front door. Turns out he is a fine writer, and has made himself an important part of their team.
We should do this on every single campus.
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Bolingbaker is right. I was a journalism major when I first started college (not FSU) and wrote for the campus paper for two years. Never once while on the staff was I allowed to write a positive Greek article. The one time that I finally got clearance to write a Greek-related piece, I was shot down by the editor who told me that she wasn't putting any biased Greek article in her paper, and instructed me to never write another article like it again.
The content of the article she found offensive? It was a write-up of the philanthropy work that individual Greek organizations were currently involved with on campus.
I left the paper not too long after that incident, thoroughly disgusted by the anti-Greek staff.