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Correction?
As you may recall, last month I ranted about an article in last month’s issue of the Blueprint, my school’s official newspaper. I’m at it again. Please, read on:
<rant>
This month’s issue attempted to cool down a few tempers by inserting a small retractionclarification on page 5:
In the article entitled
Red cards for the soccer team: Patter of misbehavior kept under wraps?(Luby, Volume Ⅸ, Issue 1), the author inadvertently misreported a fact regarding the soccer team’s hazing incident. Based on student accounts, the article asserts that coaches were present while the incident took place. According to a coach, they were not. Blueprint regrets the error.
You’d have thought that, after the reaction from the last issue, the Blueprint’s editors have helped the newspaper keep a low profile. Not. In my opinion, they’ve just continued the tradition.
This month’s issue features a story, front page and above the fold, titled, Students fail Walk goal by $10K: Sophomore slump stunts success
. Now, beyond that horrible alliteration, let’s look at the facts: In the article, there was a table that stated the collected amounts for each grade level. It shows that, as usual, the Freshmen class raised the most money, and that, as usual, the Sophomores beat the Juniors and Seniors (most of whom, however, contribute to the Freshmen class). This year, we turned in roughly the amounts of the Junior and Senior classes combined. Yet, the authors — two freshmen and a senior — fail to mention this contradiction until the third column, wherein they acknowledge, Not one junior turned in money on the first colleciton, and by the final collection, less than a third had brought in $78.
I’ve been critical of the Blueprint for one reason: yellow journalism. The Blueprint takes advantage of the fact that they are unchallengedly distributed to every student in the school. They think that this free distribution and school sponsorship means that they can say whatever they please. They don’t seem to follow the phrase All the news that’s fit to print
, associated with the New York Times, and, therefore, associated with quality journalism.
</rant>
But I don’t want to leave you today on a low note. Ajay Kumar ’04 published an interesting parody of last month’s scandalous article:
Sorry, but I have removed this article from this server, at the request of Blueprint Editor-in-Chief Paul Whitlatch.
Wow. I just love reading parodies.