Follow us on Instagram
Try our daily mini crossword
Play our latest news quiz
Download our new app on iOS/Android!

Reporting of Princeton resident's arrest met with indifference*

The Daily Princetonian's recent reporting of the arrest of John Smith, 54, a resident of Princeton, N.J., who did not attend the University, sparked no outrage on campus, according to a review of online comments posted on the paper's website.

The reaction comes after waves of online commenters have publicly and pseudonymously decried the publication for running stories that single out University students by name as having been the unfortunate victims of an arrest.

ADVERTISEMENT

Smith was arrested by the University's Department of Public Safety earlier this week. His arrest generated awave of indifference on the comments section of the 'Prince,' not only by the absence of online activists but also by the sparse wisdom some of them shared.

Luckily, some commenters were quick to clarify that Smith's arrest neither matters much to the community nor impacts Smith's own future.

"He doesn't face the same prospects of reputation damage that a student just entering the job market does," one commenter said.

"This man is not a young student with his whole life ahead of him," another online persona or spambot added.

"Maybe because we as a community of Princeton students should try and protect one another rather than engage in public shaming?" one online writer posited, using a rhetorical question as a means of explaining the fundamental difference between someone who goes to Princeton and someone who doesn't.

Another student explained that the 'Prince' should not report the names of students arrested "for moral and ethical reasons, mostly," although these rules do not apply when talking aboutunaffiliatedindividuals.

ADVERTISEMENT

The arrests of a number of students this year have sparked widespread activism in the online comments section of the 'Prince,' where some online personalities have asked for the paper to stop being a bully, gathering massive online support. One comment even gained more than 100 upvotes.

"Can we please stop with the name posting?" the online activist wrote. "It's so easy to look up this person on Facebook or whatever, there's no need to advertise someone's mistakes to everyone on campus—especially since it's such a small campus. It's not only unnecessary, it's cruel to the person."

Editors of the 'Prince' could not be reached to confirm whether they even bothered to read the comments.

This is The Daily Princetonian's annual joke issue.Don't forget you can laugh at the news.

Subscribe
Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »