Hearing that we have a liberal slant and that we oppress opposing view points isn't anything new, but let me share with you a small example of how we view the dichotomy.
Four of us from The VanCougar attended a national journalism conference in San Francisco last month. It is the most prestigioius of its kind in the company, attracing nearly 1,000 students and advisers from 100+ schools. Student journalists learn about every aspect of the process from being an editor to writing to layout to coming up with story ideas and more. It is an invaluable source of information, to say the least.
What bothers me, however, is that there was a booth set up in the corner of the main lobby, advocating students to actually silence the voice and seize the control conservatives alledgedly have wrangled away from frustrated liberals on campuses nationwide. That's right - newswriters (who, by nature, are supposed to be unbiased) were encouraged by booth curators to sign up to help take control from the conservative dominance that has (I guess) overtaken colleges everywhere.
This didn't excite me. Not even a free "Outfoxed" DVD got me excited about this, because it's a maddeningly misguided program. The beauty of college is supposed to sit partly with the amalgam of ideals from all areas on the political spectrum, not one side being hell-bent on stamping out the other.
I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly don't want to stop or oppress conservatives - they have as much of a right as anyone to voice their opinions, run clubs and write for their college newspaper as anyone else. That there are programs advocating for the errosion of these ideals and beliefs on college campuses frustrates and worries me greatly.
The newspaper doesn't belong to any political party.
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1 comment:
It frustrates me that on this campus most of the students feel compelled to either identify themselves or others as entirely "liberal" or "conservative". How many people subscribe entirely to the left or the right? Either way, people feel they are underrepresented on this campus, but are then unwilling to get involved. How many complaints did the Vancougar get about bias, and then how many applications did they receive to contribute conservative views? I hear about our "liberal" teachers, but rarely hear conservative views voiced in class. It seems to me that on our campus we have resisted much of the conservative "control" but are then accused of being liberally slanted. This is far from the truth, we swing both ways. Student funds, from the student fees we pay were just allocated to a religious celebration on campus, queer cougars have received all the funding they have ever requested, and anybody who is willing to get 5 people together can start a club and use student fees for their events too. Conservatives, liberals, and all of us in between have the opportunity to be heard, we just have to be willing to speak up. I applaud the editors of the Vancougar for staying true to themselves this year, because yes the paper does not belong to any political party, it belongs to the students, but it will always only reflects the views of those willing to talk.
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