Letter to the Editors

To the Editors of the Pioneer:

On Wednesday, I posted a response to the excellent letter Editor Caroline Ryan published in the Pioneer. In my post, I expressed admiration for the clarity of her argument, and sadness that a student newspaper faces such deplorable conditions in trying to report campus news. This stance of complete message control on the part of the administration is antithetical to the concept of academic freedom and freedom of the press. It is demoralizing to the student journalists and heartbreaking for faculty members who work with them. It also makes our journalism program a hard sell to potential students who want the experience of working on a vital and relevant paper, not a University Public Relations mouthpiece, and discover that cannot happen here.

I am writing this letter as an addendum to my brief Facebook post (which seems to have disappeared) after learning that copies of this week’s Pioneer seem to have been removed from the campus before visitors to Homecoming and the Admissions Open House could grab them. This has happened before. It also happens at the Brooklyn Campus. It is shocking to see this go on in a campus community. I am appalled that our administration thinks this approach is somehow beneficial to our university, when in fact it does damage to all of us.

Barbara Fowles, Chair
Department of Communications and Film