When it comes to inter-media war, we are usually not ones to take offense to unwarranted attempts to get a rise. Generally, The Spectrum gives little thought or allowance to unwarranted cheap shots from other campus news stories; they are entitled to print their opinion columns just as we are.
But that doesn't mean that we will take UB Generation‘s ridiculous column sitting down. Allie Balcerzak's rancorous criticism of our thrice-weekly news coverage goes far beyond hyperbole, and it warrants an intelligent response.
The Rahn piece that leaned toward a male's interpretation of the rules of attraction was a column; a column, if Ms. Balcerzak doesn't know, is an article that pertains to one staff member's opinion, and it does not reflect the collective attitude of a newspaper. So as far as fact checking goes, we are doing quite fine.
We stand behind Mr. Rahn and his right to a page three column that makes a point and garners attention. Part of writing in the news is stimulating controversy with contentious columns, as Generation evidently knows.
She moves on to claim that an article on the removal of Four Loko from beverage distributor shelves was additionally sexist. Balcerzak must have missed that the only plausibly sexist line was a student quote.
Not only have many of our female writers agreed to the statement's proximity to truth, but our newspaper is not in the business of censoring student opinions to make our objective coverage more delicate.
If there is any question as to what the editors do in the office, for the record, we run an independent newspaper for more than twelve hours each production day, making sure that our mistakes are minimal. If we ran our articles once every two weeks, criticism of our coverage would be better taken.
But perhaps the most frustrating example of illogical mudslinging in Balcerzak's article suggested that we attempt to persuade UB students to transfer to other Buffalo colleges, simply because we run advertisements for Daemen College.
First of all, there is no reason to transfer to Daemen, unless you want to pay more money for a less competitive school. It would not benefit us as a newspaper in any form to drive students away from UB.
The Spectrum is funded independently. Despite what it says on page three, we have not received funding from the school for two years, and we rely wholly on advertisements for financial sustenance.
If we received large sums of money from Sub Board for our press, we could be picky about our advertisements. But as it stands, we owe no consideration to UB for our ads, and our newspaper never pledged allegiance to the betterment of UB.
If UB loses students, there is no way it is The Spectrum's fault. If a college newspaper was the deciding factor that prompted you to transfer colleges, like Balcerzak suggests, we are sure that your former college will not miss you.
So in retrospect, we don't even have to save face. We ran Rahn's column with sober discretion, and our reporting has always been factually sound and unbiased.
Our advertising may cater to other colleges, but that is just a part of business, a constant war in which all is fair. We are only sorry that Balcerzak, a fellow journalist, does not know that yet.
If there was a bone, consider it picked.
