March 1st, 2007

Sarcasm apparently understood, but not appreciated: WSN and Beckman

By R. Kreiter

In the past day or so, both Michael Devlin and I have sarcastically referred to John Beckman, university spokesman to the stars, as “WSN’s good friend.” Are Mike and I the same person? You’ll have to wait until sweeps to discover the truth about that on an exciting two-part episode of THE WSN.

Back to something resembling a point, there’s clearly some confusion about WSN’s relationship with John Beckman, and probably the school in general. I’m certainly not the authority on this, but I do know some things.

Basically, we deal with Beckman a lot, to the point where his name comes up in, oh, probably every issue. I don’t know if WSN really has friends. Anyone I can think of who’s involved enough in the paper to merit the title of “friend” is an employee. And the eighth time I see or hear a single administrator’s name in one day, an unsettling familiarity settles in.

Back to my column, a fellow by the name of Zach Schwartz-Weinstein has dropped by to proclaim that:

The editorial board’s recurring references to Beckman as “our good friend” don’t work as sarcasm, and if they aren’t intended sarcastically, then they make a mockery of any semblance of journalistic objectivity or any commitment to actually hold the NYU administration accountable for the many claims its mouthpiece has made over the past few years which have been somewhat less than factual.

I wouldn’t call it “sarcastic” like Mike would, because sarcasm is mean and I don’t want to be mean to John Beckman. I consider him something of a noble adversary; I have a grudging respect for him. It’s his job to get up every day and administer NYU spin control, and he does a smashing job of it.

On the other side of the table, it’s WSN’s job to shatter that PR; how well we’re doing is for our readers to judge. Anyone who thinks that WSN is allowing the administration to go unaccountable for the crazy things they do isn’t reading our newspaper, at least not the opinion section.

Ultimately, I’m starting to feel that the point of WSN isn’t to repeatedly bash the administration. What I think we should focus on — probably are focusing on — is giving knowledge to students. Maybe it’s just because I’m kind of a pinko, but I feel that educating the great mass of NYU students so that they can stand up for themselves against the administration is far nobler than just repeatedly dishing it out to administrators, Beckman among them. He doesn’t even make policy decisions; it’s his job to cover for other people’s mistakes.

Like Tom Ellett. Gosh, that guy’s a sinking ship.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 1:27 am and is filed under Opinion, Words are Cheap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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