Quote:
Originally Posted by Low C Sharp
Isn't this true of a Greek system, and an individual chapter, as well? Hundreds of chapters have gone under due to unpopularity with their target audience. It behooves them just as much to be careful how the actions of one member may alienate another group of students.
At any rate, I wasn't arguing that the paper shouldn't have seen it coming, nor that the Greeks at UIUC didn't have a right to boycott the paper if they wanted to. I'm arguing that if they exercised that right based on one editorial, that was an ugly decision and reflects poorly on the system.
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The actions of GLO members alienate people all the time. Just the idea of exclusive groups winds a lot of people up, with no particular actions ever required. I think the best that most of us can hope for is that the positive things that GLO members do outweighs the negative.
It's been my experience that the students drawn to campus papers seem to enjoy reporting on the foibles of the Greek system, and with reporting on more serious GLO issues, a sense of schadenfreude can creep in to the coverage. Once that adversarial dynamic gets started, I'm not sure why Greeks would have much interest in supporting the paper.
And on some level, this kind of issue might be one of the most important for a young journalist to face. How do you effectively cover misdeeds of the affluent or powerful* without alienating the people who keep you in business?
*Greeks didn't have that much influence the general campus community at my school at the time I attended, and never could have taken down the Red and Black, but if a Greek boycott put the paper out of business, that's a pretty influential group.
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