The DePauw would like to apologize to those who felt hurt or victimized by the comic that was published in Tuesday’s issue of our newspaper. The comic, as we are sure our readers know, is meant to be funny and satirical. Oftentimes, satire walks the line between humorous and offensive. Based on the reactions on social media and strongly-worded emails sent to The DePauw, it is clear that this line was crossed with last issue’s comic.
With that being said, there are bigger issues to pay attention to in our world than a joke-gone-wrong about fraternity men who have alcohol “flowing through [their] veins,” as the comic reads. We recognize that this is a stigma about fraternity men, and we apologize for perpetuating that. However, why is it that no one pays attention to The DePauw until we do something wrong?
Most of the student body probably doesn’t recognize that the Editorial Board of The DePauw is in the Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media working on the newspaper every Monday and Thursday from until around 1 a.m., in addition to our twice-weekly storyboard meetings and the actual story-searching, interviewing and writing of the stories that we put into our papers.
We know, we signed up for this job. We wouldn’t put in the 20-plus hours a week that we do if we did not love it. But journalism is a thankless profession. People are ruthless. We publish a comic centered around fraternity men drinking--God forbid!--and we get eaten alive, called a “trash” newspaper and told to be more professional. And yet, we don’t see anyone else offering to do the job instead.
This is not an accusation, DePauw students. This is an invitation. We want to be better. We want to do the best possible job we can do. But we are 18-22-year-old students in college, who are balancing other extracurriculars and a full class schedule, just like everyone else. When we are woefully understaffed, overworked and completely ignored (with exception to the times when people feel the need to point out our flaws), it is impossible to put out a perfect product all the time. Sometimes, we mess up. We are a college newspaper; it’s better that we make mistakes now so that we don’t repeat them in the real world.
So, we invite you to join us. Beyond the controversial comic of Tuesday’s issue--which, as previously stated, we understand crossed a line and offended some members of the community--occasionally, people don’t like our content. Instead of complaining anonymously on Yik Yak, however, we wish people would do something to change what they don’t like instead of just giving us beef for the occasional slip-up when we have been working tirelessly all semester to provide campus with information that we believe to be important.
Obviously, our intention is never to upset anyone. We want to expose the truth: that is our ultimate--and, really, our only--goal. So please, to those of you who are dissatisfied with what we are doing at The DePauw, hear this message: instead of bashing on what we do, do what we do. How else will we be the publication we strive to be?