To the Editor:
Over my four years [at Fairfield], I’ve had the joy and pleasure of opportunities that span across the University’s offerings.
To name them would immediately convey to the reader [that] I am cocky. To not list them would encourage the thought, ‘What gives this guy the right?’ So, we’ll leave it at this: I’ve seen a lot here.
While there are things that make me honored to be a student here, such as many devoted faculty and staff members, the vast opportunities of service and the friends I’ve come to know and love, there are many things about Fairfield of which I am ashamed, one being The Mirror.
Anything more than kissing while being intoxicated with alcohol is illegal and considered to be rape. The term ‘drunken hookup’ has appeared more times in ‘He Said/She Said’ than Mr. [Andrew]Chapin has mentioned his self-pleasuring activities. To have a paper encourage and promote rape is nothing short of a travesty.
Furthermore, why would a faculty member who gets paid a salary to work a job with abundant responsibilities and long hours bother to read or reflect on editorials bashing his or her efforts in between articles on the latest alcohol-chugging tactics and drunken hookups?
To knock The Mirror entirely is to disregard the attempts at promoting different areas of campus that the people who make a difference here and the feelings of the student body.
All of these things have, at times, been covered and covered well, but not nearly enough to even consider the paper a legitimate newspaper.
When I was interviewed, it was done unprofessionally and I was quoted, like many of my friends, incorrectly. Articles seem to bash on [former FUSA President] Hutch [Williams ’08] for any slight disagreement you may have, while he’s done so much for this campus and community every single day.
As a former A’amp;E editor of a school newspaper, I felt inclined to stop in when I saw a poorly written review and remember the Entertainment editor admitting the article was poorly done and he had just had some inexperienced writer rush to do it since he didn’t have the time.
The pictures are often meshed with ads which yields an ugly, poor visual and it takes away from the general appeal of the layout. Often there are typos, such as writing last week’s Tailgate music was provided by the Ham Channel, not WVOF.
The Sports coverage is often slanted towards certain sports over others (i.e. women’s rowing?).
I remember being in a FUSA Senate meeting and being told to disregard The Mirror’s coverage on IRHA’s May Day because what was written was inaccurate.
The biased articles knock FUSA every single week, yet how many staff writers are members of FUSA, or any other clubs that work to help the student body and the administration work more cohesively?
We all have the right and freedom to say or feel what we want, express it how we deem fit and with it carry the responsibility to back it up.
The student body is a mostly apathetic one at best, which can be proven by the embarrassingly low number of students who do community service. It’s a Jesuit school and Bridgeport is five minutes to away. To spend four years here and to never make time for service is nothing short of a shame, period.
As a college newspaper of a relatively apathetic student body at a small school filled with students who read The Mirror every week and nothing else, you have the choice to be called to more.
Though you cover service trips, it’s rarely covered in the way you cover alcohol-related activities or disagreements with the administration.
Often you mention the ‘cookie-cutter’ student, yet promote all the things that make the student body homogenous and disappointing (binge drinking, drunken hookups, etc.).
You could promote a shift away from the stereotypes towards greater heights. But instead you embrace all the things you then go and complain about, while encouraging rape, binge drinking and apathy, unless of course it’s a call to students to rank on the administration.
We are given rights while few use them with the attached responsibility. It’s been a challenge discerning this over my four years.
Thanks for reminding me of the road not to take.
Sincerely,
Joseph P. LaCroix ’08
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