EX ANIMO: WHY THIS NEWSPAPER SUCKS

Chris Banyas

Editor-in-Chief

Yeah, you read that right. So why does this newspaper suck? First and foremost, the Bengal has had a tendency over the last several years to take press releases sent out by the university and cover those as news. This regurgitation of information has ultimately led to a skewing of one of our very basic responsibilities as an institution of the press: to serve our constituents, i.e. the students of this university and the members of the general public.

We have an obligation to seek out the truth, and that truth very rarely comes from the lips of the administration in its purest form.

Everyone has motives for saying what they say and doing what they do.

Once you start down the road of covering things in this manner, it is a short jump away to begin consulting, not with the students whose opinions and feelings should be front and center, but with members of the administration, faculty or other parties who are solely interested in how good the university looks on paper and in the reports at the end of each fiscal year.

It isn’t far off to say that someone walking by a stack of our newspapers could easily confuse them for a weekly newsletter mailed out by the administration, or as what could be boiled down to propaganda for the administration of ISU.

How did this happen?

The nature of a weekly publication is inherently different than that of a daily or semi-weekly, but this is only one component of the problem. It is easier to take press releases and run with them, as you have something delivered to you that is very clearly marked as “news,” although it is much more in the vein of sponsored content rather than actual news.

Change is never easy. Change doesn’t happen by itself. Change is often ugly, violent and unpredictable.

Yet change we must and change we will as I refuse to continue along the path that has been established.

While I take much of the responsibility for the path the paper has proceeded along, it is not as simple as all that.

Walking around the ISU campus and the community that surrounds it often feels to me like I am traversing a cocaine-fueled creation playing itself out inside the head of Steven King (I’m looking at you “Tommyknockers”). I wouldn’t be surprised to discover a crashed alien spaceship lodged underneath the length of the town that slowly turned people into mindless drones, willing to accept anything that people tell them just because the person telling it to them gets paid more than they do.

I honestly think that sometimes people walking around campus and around the city have many of the same visual characteristics of those unfortunate souls marched before the lines of the Gestapo during WWII, or of the inhabitants of a concentration camp, keeping their heads down and just waiting for someone to snuff them out, hoping that with one more day would come deliverance and not death.

Why is this the way that we find things?

Does it have to do with the extremely unique demographic of ISU students in terms of age? You always hear that ISU is one of the most unique student bodies in terms of non-traditional students, but is this contributing to the feeling of apathy?

Does it have something to do with the socio-economic state of the area in which we live? Does it have anything to do with the religious/cultural make-up of the student body?

I’m going to throw a bunch of things at you and see if anything sticks.

As students we pay the salaries of all those individuals who sit in the comfortable offices of the tower that stands at the head of the quad, but unless we collectively hold them accountable for the decisions that they make, they essentially have free reign to do whatever they want.

What about the staff that ISU hires? Maybe the trend of rampant nepotism that is sweeping the world has reared its ugly head right here at our very own college. There are people that have been brought in to fill positions who have left other offices under very controversial circumstances. Are these people the best for the positions that they are filling?

What about tuition? I’m tired of someone telling me that the cost of my education is rising again with the undertone (and overtone for that matter) of “just be happy it isn’t going up more.”

Essentially what is happening each year is someone tells me that I need to pay more, and then they put their hand in my pocket, while their other hand, already in my other pocket, continues to take my money.

Every aspect of your education should be open to contention.

Better to die on your feet, than live on your knees.

We can’t do this alone.

Starting this week, we are approaching the Bengal as if it were a new publication, though it is really much more like the beginning of a gestation period during which the features will begin to become visible from the exterior.

Students are the name of the game, and while we are going to approach the publication in that manner, we cannot do it without you. Bring your concerns to us. Bring your observations to us. Your frustrations, your fears, your angers.

If we manage to take the first step toward a new way of doing things, we might just be able to shake things up.