In Brendan Cavalier’s column, ‘Sex columns damage integrity,’ he describes his ‘fear for the future of college journalism,’ and I must say I share this concern, but not quite for the same reasons that Cavalier has supplied (Feb. 11, pg. 6). In examining two sex columns from schools in the Boston area, he extrapolates that ‘if these features are any indication of the situation in other college newspapers around the country,’ we are in trouble.
First, I’m not sure if this sample is the most representative of the entire country, and, in fact, I would submit that many schools outside the Northeast might find more conservative views to the columnist’s liking. I say this because Cavalier seems to come into the debate with a certain bias, in discussing a column from a Tufts paper. He states that ‘surprisingly, Madison’s column has a few redeeming qualities.’ What is surprising about it, unless one is already coming into the discussion with negative associations with all things sexual?
I am confused as to whether Cavalier is saying college papers shouldn’t publish such ‘taboo’ topics as sex, or only publish articles and columns that fit some standard of quality when it comes to the subject of sex. My question is, shouldn’t every article and column fit that same standard of quality, regardless of topic? With all the rhetoric and back and forth mixed in with a few facts, I’m not sure that this column was up to the usual standards of The Daily Free Press, and I feel that the future of college journalism everywhere in the world is at risk because of it.
Michael Kaplan GRS ’04
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
