As I write this, The Daily Princetonian’s editors are concluding the process of selecting new writers to join the ranks of the Opinion section. I’m incredibly excited about the talent these writers will bring to the newspaper, as the material I’ve read from them is phenomenal. Yet, at the same time, I have a pretty good idea of what will happen over the course of the next couple months.
The writers will experience surges of backlash from the wider Princeton community in the form of twelve-word responses from students who choose only to identify themselves by their class year, if not names like “Your arguments suck” and “You just don’t get it”. Those who are freshman will be yelled at by commenters who accuse them of covering issues they don’t understand at all, even in columns to which their freshman-hood has little to no relevance. Those who attempt to foster discussion in the comments section will receive a snide response along the lines of “dude come on don’t comment on your own article”. Soon enough, the freshman columnists will stop caring what the rest of campus has to say about their columns, because the occasional well-argued takedown of the logic behind a piece will inevitably be buried under mountains of snark.
I don’t say this to give the impression that ‘Prince’ writers don’t pay attention to negative feedback. As self-applauding as it sounds, we really do care about what we write. At the end of the day, we will put in a considerable amount of preparation bouncing ideas off of friends and editors in an attempt to present a nuanced and well-reasoned opinion that will stand up to criticism. Rather, I paint this picture to illustrate what the near future will look like, one very similar to the situation which Christian Wawrzonek describes in his recent column “On Hating The Daily Princetonian.”
Like Wawrzonek, I don’t fully agree with many decisions the paper makes, although I do think that many of the problems concerning the ‘Prince’ stem from systemic issues within news publications as a whole rather than ‘Prince’-specific ones (potentially harmful models like poorly fact-checked iterative journalism are unfortunately the standard at this point). However, like him, I also think that “hurtful, malicious or disrespectful criticisms will only turn away the very people who want to improve our paper and nothing will ever change.”
There are many ways to disagree with something a writer has to say, and snark is one of the least constructive ways to do so. New York Observer editor-at-large Ryan Holiday, in his book Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, defines the term as such: “You know you’re dealing with snark when you attempt to respond to a comment and realize that there is nothing you can say.” The comment’s lack of detail or specificity (for example, saying something like “this is one lame-ass article”) means that it exists only as an affirmation, something for anonymous users to upvote.
English essayist William Hazlitt wrote, in his 1826 work “On The Pleasure Of Hating,” that this sort of snappy rhetoric (or the 19th-century equivalent) is popular because “we grow tired of every thing but turning others into ridicule, and congratulating ourselves on their defects.” Pointed, substanceless remarks dominate the comments section because it is far easier to write a quick, meaningless takedown than a carefully constructed one. They also do so because it is far easier to skip straight to the comments section and upvote that short comment because it fits in with a particular campus narrative than it is to read an article and come to one’s own conclusions about it.
The takeaway here is this: if you truly believe that we as ‘Prince’ writers don’t have a clue about the topics we write about, there are countless constructive ways to let the campus know. If you disagree with a freshman’s perspective on careers in finance, write a guest column in response, as Yesenia Arroyo ‘15 did recently. If you think that the premise of a theater review in the Street section is deeply flawed, don’t perpetuate the “condescen[sion]” in the comments section. The opportunities are practically limitless, and high-quality responses matter.
Despite the pervasive attitude on campus, the writers of this newspaper are dedicated to producing quality content if the material we publish isn’t up to snuff. If you think that this attitude isn’t good enough, help change it by putting in more effort than is required for a snarky, ultimately meaningless retort. As ‘Prince’ columnist Bennett McIntosh puts it, “The entire staff of the paper turns over every four years — if you want to improve the Prince, there is literally nothing standing in your way.”
Will Rivitz is a freshman from Brookline, Mass. He can be reached at wrivitz@princeton.edu.
Read More
Princeton must move towards a world-changing curriculum
Luqmaan Bamba“If we in the Orange Bubble are supposed to be taught how to be changemakers, our education should not just stop at learning about change but also extend to the tangible application of it.”
“If we in the Orange Bubble are supposed to be taught how to be changemakers, our education should not just stop at learning about change but also extend to the tangible application of it.”
Statement of solidarity with Columbia University students from Princeton faculty and staff
Guest ContributorsIn an open letter, Princeton University faculty and staff express solidarity with Columbia University and Barnard College student protestors by boycotting the universities until their demands are met.
In an open letter, Princeton University faculty and staff express solidarity with Columbia University and Barnard College student protestors by boycotting the universities until their demands are met.
Princetonians want political change. Why don’t more of us take action?
Frances Brogan“Understanding that this is how activism works — collectively — can empower people to go to protests and meetings because it undermines the stereotype that being an “activist” is an undesirable individual identity and the misconception that only people with that “identity” label can contribute.”
“Understanding that this is how activism works — collectively — can empower people to go to protests and meetings because it undermines the stereotype that being an “activist” is an undesirable individual identity and the misconception that only people with that “identity” label can contribute.”
