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Opinion
The Clarion | February 27, 2009
The solution to The Clarion’s liberal bias:
IT’S ALL UP TO YOU
by Joseph Chilton
Editor in Chief
On the second floor of MG there is a
buUetin board covered with chps from last
year’s issues of T he Clarion. The bulletin
board, fittingly, is near the Clarion office,
and so I have to walk by it several times a
week in order to go to work. Last Friday
as I passed by I noticed that something
was scrawled in pen across the clippings
on the board.
Upon second glance, I discovered that
somebody had peimed the words “liberal
crap” across several of the issues. I was a
little disturbed by this, obviously. The act of
vandalism didn’t really bother me (although
I’m sure whoever spent the time to arrange
that buUetin board probably didn’t appreci
ate it being defaced). What bothered me,
instead, was the sentiment expressed.
I am not delusional enough to believe that
many articles in the Clarion don’t have a
distinct left-wing slant. I would even go
so far to say that most issues of our paper
do, in fact, have a liberal bias—especially
in the opinion section. But I would also
like to point out that The Clarion is a paper
compo sed exclusively of submissions from
members of the campus community, and
that each issue features information as to
how to submit to our paper
In fact, I caimot recall receiving a single
opinion piece in the Clarion’s e-mail box
this year and then refusing to print it. Most
weeks we scramble to find enough content
to fill eight pages. We do not have the
luxury of having a political agenda.
The liberal stance that our opinion section
takes on most issues is a result of the fact
that the more vocal members of the student
body, when it comes to submitting their
opinions for print, tend to be more Daily
Show and less Fox News.
In discussions with some of my more con
servative friends, I have been chastised for
the abuse our paper dealt out to Sarah Palin
(and I in no way deny the maliciousness
with which we went after her). But I would
also point out that we received several
pro-Palin submissions from one student
last semester, and we printed them all. But
that one person is the only conservative-
leaning pundit that has submitted work to
us all year.
The Clarion is the Brevard College
newspaper Each week we publish what
students submit to our mailbox. If there is
a bias present, it is there because that bias
exists in the student body, so far as I can
tell judging by what students turn in to us
to publish.
So wiU The Clarion continue to have a
liberal bias? That remains to be seen. The
writing on the wall suggests that there is a
conservative base on campus, so I guess
the whole matter depends on whether that
base continues to express their opinions
through graffiti vandalism, or if they choose
to expand their opinions beyond two-word
sentiments and voice their opinion by uti
lizing a medium that was designed to give
them a platform to be heard.
Cartoon by Karam Boeshaar
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