Campus journalism

Three recent campus incidents left me thinking about journalism at Princeton. The first was the fiasco that erupted around the faux column The Daily Princetonian wrote mocking rejectee Jian Li, whose feelings of entitlement were rivaled only by the outrage sparked by this article's unintentional racism. The second was a piece in The New York Observer about bicker which left a few students in the spotlight and many more staggered at a rookie reporter's sensationalized intrusion into our campus life. The third was the debut of Oh So Fresh, a new arts and culture magazine about Princetonians for which I wrote an article.

When I initially asked the 'Prince' permission to write this column, I was livid. Oh So Fresh had just come out, and I was getting tons of flak for my involvement with it. I wrote an email to its editors that was shamefully unkind, for which I have not apologized nearly as much as they deserve. They replied, and rightfully so, that I was overreacting as a result of hanging around Terrace, clearly the least welcoming corner of campus to the sort of publication that targets the "Princeton mainstream." Yet within the limits of my histrionics, I still felt betrayed. My article had appeared in a publication rife with typos and juvenilia, facing a graphic of "Fashion Do's and Don'ts" that branded my unnamed university peers with blocks over their eyes and cruel captions under their photos.

I was left pondering the staggering autonomy of our campus publications. We go to what some say is the best university in the country, a campus so full of self-responsibility and ambition that a daily newspaper and countless other publications can circulate without ever undergoing the review of a faculty member. We decide what is news, what is interesting and what is offensive. We choose whether to tout or fight the party line, which stories to tell and how they should be told. Outside of truly outrageous circumstances, there is no higher authority.

With the power of our words, we students are given possibilities we do not fulfill and are stymied by responsibilities we may not even recognize. Technically speaking, we could say anything. We could decry our fellows or even our superiors, write personal essays about struggle or loss. But we do no such thing. With the weight of our words hanging over us, it is easier not to run the risk. A few years ago, Nassau Weekly editors were crucified in national media for their "10 Holocaust Films I've Never Seen But Would Like To." Incidentally, they also received a scathing response here on campus from columnist Chris Berger '06, in an article that ended, "there are just some things you don't make fun of".

When talking to The New York Times, Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson called the 'Prince's article about Jian Li "offensive"; in 2005, Associate Dean Hilary Herbold told the Times that the Nass article was "undeniably offensive," adding that, "These kinds of things ... are not ordinarily the kinds of things we discipline ... But we are concerned about making students feel uncomfortable." And recently, a University representative kindly explained to The New York Observer that eating clubs are "independent establishments, similar to a restaurant" ["Undercover at Princeton's Eating Clubs," Feb. 26, 2007].

We are — increasingly so — a young population in the public eye. As such, and especially in this Internet Age of ours, campus publications have increased responsibilities to, well, the campus. I learned an important lesson last week about how jealously I must guard my words, but our responsibilities subsume so much more than the relationship between writer and editor. Our publications are the window through which the world sees us; editors should understand regard the gravity of that ambassadorship.

Am I naive to wish that instead of challenging one another, University publications could be mutually supportive? I am not an only child, and I understand sibling rivalry. But when my siblings and I tattled on each other as kids, my mother always responded with incredulity. "I don't believe you guys," she'd say. "You need to watch out for each other! But since you say so, you're grounded." Competition between publications is normal and can drive each to do its best. But when the world and even our administrators look down at us, I wish we could speak out together as a student body — engaging our campus issues instead of mocking each others' efforts, talking about what really bothers us instead of waiting for a straw man to safely knock down. We all know how to argue, but I wonder whether we can speak. Tessa Brown is a religion major from Chicago, Ill. She can be reached at trbrown@princeton.edu.