When we receive feedback from our readers, we typically take it in stride. But a comment on an article published yesterday’s truly disturbed me.
I noticed a trend in WSN to complain about every single aspect of NYU (note: I did not say negative). When you people exhaustively complained about the university you are choosing to pay 45+ a year, you get bored. What happens when writers get bored? This.
The comment was posted on the story “Either get in line or online; people ‘on line’ are stupid.” This column was not meant to shed a ray of light on a subject, nor was it meant to make a grand argument. It was meant to illustrate cultural regional differences, as well as to entertain, according to the writer, Rachel P. Kreiter. And because Rachel writes a linguistics column, she analyzed the grammatical mistakes of the phrase “standing on line.” The past few weeks, she has written about weightier topics, such as the language behind NYU’s global colonization.
But the attacks against this subject matter don’t bother me so much. What does bother me is that this reader makes the argument that we should not pay $45,000 a year to attend a university we have “exhaustively complained” about. In other words, if we have so much to complain about, why don’t we leave the university and go somewhere else? The New York Times runs opinion pieces everyday “complaining” about the U.S. So why do those authors live and pay taxes to a nation they “exhaustively complain” about?
“Writing about problems serves a purpose,” WSN Opinion Editor Matt Buchanan said. “It points out problems to get them fixed. Writing about something that’s dandy serves no purpose.”
This comment left on Rachel’s story disturbed me because it implies that we are bitter students who continually complain about being at a university we don’t want to be at. That’s not us. We like plenty of things at this university. In fact, we like what this university offers more than what most other institutions offer — that’s why we’re here. But part of the purpose of a newspaper is to “complain.” We care about NYU. That’s why we continually push the university to be better. That’s why we push our fellow students to be better. We feel we serve the students, and if there is a way to serve the students better, we would like to know — editor@nyunews.com.
To say that we complain because we’re bored is simply unfair.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I believe, in the interest of journalistic integrity, that I should point out that the exact quote was that writing about “shit that’s dandy serves no fucking purpose.”
Nice article, Alvin. Very good points. However, Matt, your quote concerns me, as this is not my conception of journalistic purpose - your idea seems to exemplify a self-indulgent, “bored” journalist, which doesn’t help Alvin’s case. Writing about “shit that’s dandy” serves the purpose of spreading newsworthy information about what’s dandy. If there’s something newsworthy to comment on, the fact that it’s positive should not eliminate its purpose. The purpose of news stories is not necessarily to create controversy or talk about what’s “not working” in the community - the purpose is to talk about what’s newsworthy - whatever that may be, even if it includes “what’s working” too.
“Shit that’s dandy” is rarely newsworthy. When I think of “shit that’s dandy,” I think of local news and “dog of the week” stories.
If we were to report that after our “line hell” story at Starbucks that line hell is now simply line purgatory thanks to improvements in the system, I would puke. It’s dandy, but not newsworthy. Granted, there are days when you have paper to fill, and dandy’s all you’ve got.
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