Page 2
Campus News
The Clarion \ April 29, 2020
Response to feedback
Continued from page 1
It doesn’t matter that we are a college
newspaper, because we are all adults on
this campus who are able to vote. It is our
responsibility to increase and maintain political
knowledge. It is just as important, if not more,
for a college newspaper to cover political news
just as large news media organizations would
and do.
Also, the comment that we are “telling people
which candidate they should vote for” is just not
true at all. In the article, it is merely just asking
and urging Sanders supporters to stick with the
Democratic vote and vote for Biden, unlike what
happened in 2016. It was not demanding people
vote for a specific person.
We on the Clarion staff, and even as a whole
nation, should hope that everyone is able to
educate themselves to the fullest extent that they
can, and make an educated vote on whoever
they want, and feel best, to vote for themselves.
Finally, in response to the statement about us
trying to keep our “political articles non-biased,”
the answer is that we work to do what we can.
THE Clarion
Senior Staff
Editor in Chief .... Zach Dickerson
Managing Editor . . . Julie Carter
Copy Editor Carmen Boone
Campus News.... Zach Dickerson
Opinion Julie Carter
Arts & Life Chioe McGee
Aia Andonovska
Sports Eleanor Flannery
Layout & Design . . . Chioe McGee
Margaret Correll
Staff Writers
Eli Goodhew Mickayla Smith
Sam Hipp Solomon Turner
Caroline Hoy Amber Vance
Lande Simpson
The Clarion is a student-run college newspaper produced
by student journalists enrolled at Brevard College.
Unsigned editorials represent the collective opinion of
the staff of The Clarion. Other opinions expressed in
this newspaper are those of respective authors and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the faculty, staff
or administration of Brevard College.
All correspondence should be mailed to:
The Clarion, Brevard College, One Brevard
College Drive, Brevard, NC 28712, or send
E-mail to clarion@brevard.edu
clarion. brevard.edu
H Letters Policy: The Clarion welcomes letters
to the editor. We reserve the right to edit letters
for length or content. We do not publish letters
whose anthorship cannot be verified.
Most of the people on the Clarion staff typically
lean the same way politically, and, even with
that, it is hard for any newspaper and news
organization to remain unbiased with many
article topics, especially political ones.
Looking back, one can see on the same page
as the article in question that there is a cartoon
criticizing Sanders. Looking back at last week’s
issue, one can also see that there is a letter to the
editor titled ‘“Vote blue no matter who,’ you
say? Not us” in which both Trump and Biden
are criticized and talk about and advocate for
voting on a third party candidate. Therefore,
the political content that we publish is not all
completely biased.
Looking even further back, all the way
back to the Jan. 30, 2019 issue, there was an
opinion article published that is titled “Why the
context of the Sandmann-Phillips confrontation
matters.” This article talks about the incident that
occurred between Nick Sandmann, a Covington
Catholic High School student and Nathan
Phillips, a Native American elder, back on Jan.
18 of that year.
The views expressed in this article were
left leaning on the political spectrum, and we
received two letters to the editor about that
article that were right leaning on the spectrum
that we gladly and proudly published in the
next issue.
The Clarion staff welcomes views and
opinions on all parts and sides of the political
spectrum, whether it’s on our own staff, an
article contribution and/or a letter to the editor.
As stated last week in another response I wrote,
it’s what the First Amendment is for. The United
States is truly a marketplace of ideas.
Our letters policy is clearly advertised and
stated in the staff box and says: “The Clarion
welcomes letters to the editor. We reserve the
right to edit letters for length or content. We
do not publish letters whose authorship cannot
be verified.” We will gladly publish any letters
to the editor as long as they are not libelous,
greatly inaccurate factually, aggressive, meant
for harm, and/or etc.
Letters to the editor and contributions can be
sent to the Clarion email or to me personally.
Anyone can also join the staff and write for
themselves, send in article contributions and/
or fill out the pandemic survey/form if there
is something they would like us to write about
or answer.
If anyone has any questions or story ideas that
you want us to answer or write about, please
send us your feedback by filling out the survey
that can be found using the link address: http://
bit.lv/clarion-feedback-2020.
Poland's
largest
national park
is on fire
By Lande Simpson
staff Writer
Nearly 10 percent of Biebrza National Park
is burning down which also happens to be
occurring during the worst drought Poland
has seen in decades (BBC News). Many
park rangers and tour guides say that this
fire did not just happen randomly. The fire
did not ignite from dry heat and there are
a few underlying factors here and they will
be fighting the fire for months (BBC News).
The Environment Ministry says that the fire
occurred due to farmers illegally burning grass
(BBC News) and the dry weather worsening
the outbreak of it.
Biebrza National Park is the largest national
park in Poland. It is in the northeastern part
of the country and is roughly 228 miles. It is
known for its infamous peat-bogs, numerous
wetlands and marshes, which is home to elk,
beavers and many different species of birds.
This fire will not only affect the habitats for
the wildlife at the national park, this could also
affect the number of unique and rare species
of birds that live at this park. Reports from
Notes from Poland stated that animals are
being burned alive within the forest and the
wetlands trying to protect their nests.
The World Wildlife Fund of Polska stated,
“We regulate rivers, straighten their banks,
conduct harmful maintenance works, which
accelerate the outflow of water, we build dams
and hydrotechnical barriers, dry marshes. We
forget that it is natural rivers and their valleys
that counteract drought, and wetlands are the
best areas for natural retention, agriculture
is a major sector affected by losses from
extreme weather phenomena, drought is one
of the most common threats.” This basically
says there was nothing anyone could really
do to prevent this wildfire or the rapid spread
of it. Farmers illegally burned grass during
a drought and it backfired in the worst way
possible. Poland’s government has yet to
announce any major steps to help out the
national park but the president has asked Poles
to use water more responsibly in this dire time.