I was a bit puzzled by Dave Gacioch's column, "Thoughts on Objectivity," in yesterday's issue of The Dartmouth, in which he charged this newspaper with disseminating false information and whoring the First Amendment to further its own agenda.
Now, I'm not usually one to respond to other people's columns, but the only thing I dislike more than self-important pseudo-politicians is hypocrisy. Therefore, allow me for a moment to address a couple of points in yesterday's tirade which happen to be related to my very favorite student organization, the Student Assembly.
Before I proceed, though, it is appropriate for me to mention that I am a former president of The Dartmouth. Take this for what it is worth, but knowing my background might help you readers to better understand why I feel the way I do. In case you didn't catch the Student-Assembly-is-the-savior-of-Dartmouth slant of yesterday's column, Gacioch might have forgotten to mention that he is an Assembly executive member who just might have been furthering his own agenda. But I digress ...
Gacioch says that in the case of the Dartmouth student whose college career "was ruined" by The Dartmouth, the Editorial Board of the newspaper suppressed students' right to free speech and refused to print criticism of the decision to print the student's name. Now, I could've sworn that I read about six letters to the editor which strongly criticized The Dartmouth's decision to print the student's name. Where did these letters appear? That's right, The Dartmouth!
But, that can't be -- after all, The Dartmouth doesn't print opinions which disagree with the Editorial Board's, according to Gacioch. The Dartmouth is a monopoly, he says. It can do whatever it wants without consequences, unless we, the student body, demand that it be held to higher standards! Now, I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe yesterday's column was so angry at The D not because the paper is afraid to print criticism, but because an Assembly executive is upset that The D is unwilling to be the mouthpiece of the Student Assembly.
After all, this is really all about positive PR for the Student Assembly anyway. As a former president of The Dartmouth, trust me when I say that there is nothing the Assembly loves more than to micro-manage the way it is portrayed in The Dartmouth. I once got into an argument with a former Assembly president because he didn't like the fact that the newspaper called a shouting match between two Assembly members "internal dissension." Apparently by using that expression instead of "heated debate," The Dartmouth was whoring the standards of responsible journalism. It seems more like splitting hairs to me, but this Assembly president was incensed that The Dartmouth would not simply roll over and print exactly what he wanted.
And now the Assembly doesn't like how The Dartmouth is covering its crucial drive to bring the student body cable and to solve the College's parking woes. And the Assembly should be mad, shouldn't it? I mean, isn't it the responsibility of the College's daily newspaper to genuflect to the Student Assembly at every chance it gets?
Because the Student Assembly is unable to inspire any faith in itself by the student body -- voter turnout to elect the Assembly president and vice president was at a 10-year low this year -- it hopes to steer student attention away from its own failures by encouraging students to vent their wrath upon The Dartmouth, the evil empire that suppresses dissenting views. Gacioch calls The D "an informational monopoly."
Last time I checked, a monopoly was an entity that maintained exclusive possession or control over something. Does The D maintain exclusive possession or control over student publishing at Dartmouth? Hardly. The Student Assembly even has its very own publication, that venerable and colorful "Tick Talk." Perhaps the Assembly could have taken some of the $4,000 it allotted to the "Visions" project and diverted this money toward printing more issues of "Tick Talk." Then you could get the Assembly's propaganda straight from the source.
It is quite possible that mistakes have been made by The Dartmouth in how it has covered certain stories or events. Newspaper editors, like everyone else, make mistakes, after all. But the Student Assembly accuses The D of acting deviously to further its own hidden agenda, yet at the same time its executives don't tell you about their own hidden agenda. I don't need to flip through the dictionary to find a word for that one. It's called hypocrisy. And if the Assembly started spending more time and money on finding constructive solutions to the problems facing students and less time arguing histrionics and attacking The D, the student body would be a lot better off.
