Diaries of A New Kid On The Block

Is it just me, or does it seem that the spur of criminal acts lately on and around campus are progressively getting worse? The recent thefts of the cell phones in GWU residential areas and the laptop from the Gelman Starbucks has struck me the most.

Being new to GWU’s campus, I am unfamiliar with the criminal activity that goes on. On the other hand, ever since I became a victim of theft via gunpoint my freshman year at my alma mater, crime and violence on any campus has always been a concern of mine.

Has the crime activity here on campus remained consistent, or has it gotten worse in recent times? Does anyone think that the spur of crimes lately are a result of the recent economic downturn, and if so, can anyone assume that it is only going to get worse? According to the Hatchet,

Six robberies have been reported in police service area 207 in the month of February, according to the Metropolitan Police Department's crime map Web site, compared to one in January and three in December. Many reported incidents have occurred within the vicinity of the Foggy Bottom Metro station, and MPD officers have repeatedly mentioned the public transit stop as a means robbers use to flee the area.Are there any suggestions that upper classmen can make to newer students unfamiliar to the campus in order to help keep themselves safer and less of a target?

Are there any suggestions that upper classmen can make to newer students unfamiliar to the campus in order to help keep themselves safer and less of a target?

Is there anything different that UPD can or should be doing in order to keep the criminal acts at bay?

Sincerely,

New Kid on the Block

WRGW News-- a go-to GW news source?

We've discussed The Daily Colonial and The Hatchet, but besides getting critiqued on its election coverage, we haven't really pondered whether or not WRGW News is considered a go-to place for campus news.

Sure, many of us may not be big radio listeners and tune into our campus radio station, but why don't we consider WRGW News like we do The Daily Colonial or The Hatchet?

Their website, in blog form, seems to be updated daily, with maybe the exceptions of weekend posts. (Their last post was this past Friday).

But the real question is: what is WRGW News lacking in its appeal to our need for campus news?

It has almost everything one could ask for: a savvy streamlined website, embedded videos (their latest an interview with Student Association President-Elect Jason Lifton), and a varying range of coverage (latest posts cover everything from metro delays to an opera performance at the Kennedy Center).

So then we must ask why WRGW News hasn't been discussed as a news source; is it because it isn't considered a main player in the game? Or has it just simply been overlooked by this blog's contributors?

The Hatchet Needs an Ombudsman!

In a 2006 staff editorial, The Hatchet called for the creation of a George Washington University ombudsman to act as a liaison between the students and the school in order to better streamline the way students navigate the GW bureaucracy.

However, given recent criticisms of the way The Hatchet decides what is newsworthy on campus, the claim being that it favors coverage pushed by the University rather than what matters to readers (aka students), maybe the school's "independent" paper should take a look at the three fingers pointing back at them when they accuse the school of not catering to students' needs (not to say that GW as a whole does a good job of that, by any means, but that's another debate).

It isn't a new idea. GW Alum Arron Connelly proposed the idea of having a Hatchet Ombudsman or Public Editor in a 2005 editorial.

The time has come to stop talking and take action. Join the facebook group, and sign the petition today. To get more involved, email HatchetNeedsOmbudsman@gmail.com.

For those of you unfamiliar with what an ombudsman is, here is a wonderfully succinct definition from Wikipedia:

An ombudsman...is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some external constituency while representing the broad scope of constituent interests.

The position is used by government and private entities for several purposes, chiefly representing the interests of those who the body serves to the internal mechanisms of the entity. However, most Americans have encountered the word on the pages of America's most prominent newspapers.

The New York Times calls the position it's Public Editor. The Washington Post has - gasp - an Ombudsman. It is their job to listen to reader imput, to take it to the editorial board, and write a column explaining how things will change at the paper based on reader input, or explaining why things will stay the same.

The ombudsman is a vital position that gives those papers of record greater accountability to its readers.

It's time for The Hatchet to hold itself accountable to the people who consume their product.

Join the Facebook group and sign the petition! Send a message to The Hatchet that it needs an ombudsman so that readers have a say in what content the paper produces.

For more information on how to get involved, email HatchetNeedsOmbudsman@gmail.com.

Priorities

After reading this article in The Hatchet, my only response was "who cares?"

Who cares how many 'elite' students GW admits? (And who can even really define 'elite,' anyway?) Who cares what some magazine or newspaper ranks us? Who cares about the multitude of trivial measures of success and popularity that are floating around out there?

GW shouldn't be obsessed with any of these. The GW administration should be focusing on how to improve the University's academics and how to improve student quality of life.

GW students love to complain--about housing, about J Street, about class registration, about dozens of other issues that affect us every single day as students of this University. But the reason we complain is because there's real room for improvement--if we had an administration focused less on meeting the demands of somewhat-arbitrary ranking systems to attract new students and more on improving the lives of the students already here.

I'm graduating in a few weeks, and when I think back at my time at GW I don't think about our rankings. I don't think about our level of 'elite' student enrollment. I don't think about improvements in our average SAT/ACT score. I think about all the great times I had at this school, about the interesting classes I took and the fun I had being a college student at this University.

GW needs to focus on improving the lives of its students first and foremost. Improve dining options. Streamline class and housing registration. Improve academics. Build a better campus. Improve GW's academic and study facilities. GW needs to do what it can to make the lives of it's current students as exciting as possible, instead of focusing on ultimately arbitrary metrics.

So when I read an article like that, I can't help but think "who cares?" Because after four years at this university, the enrollment of so-called elite students is the farthest thing from my mind.

In praise of The Hatchet?! Yes.

Note: The opinions expressed in this post are those of the writer, and are not necessarily those of GWBlogSpot.

In the three months since I've been posting at GWBlogSpot, I've seen a lot of great posts that are both insightful and interesting - for example, Max's posts on the GW Housing Department, James's in-depth coverage behind the scenes of Karl Rove's visit to campus, and even a post on EBK's reaction to winning The Hatchet's April Fool's edition bracket.

I've also seen a number of posts critiquing The Hatchet's coverage (one of which is linked above), which is all fine and good, as are the anonymous comments in support of The Hatchet (perhaps staffers for the paper?).

But based on these comments, and comments from other blogs and people I've talked to, it seems that GWBlogSpot has picked up a reputation for being a Hatchet-bashing blog, which, in my opinion, couldn't be farther from the truth.

Yes, we frequently talk about The Hatchet, and yes, we frequently point out its perceived flaws, but no, we do not (or at least I do not) pick fights with The Hatchet for the sake of picking fights. And to prove that we/I don't solely hate The Hatchet, I'm going to the other side.

That's right: I'm going to write a post in praise of The Hatchet's coverage.

Specifically, the other day I came across The Hatchet's News Blog's live blogging posting on the Papal Mass at Nationals Stadium from last week. Although I question the necessity of doing the post as a live blog, given the fact that coverage started at 6 a.m., it is still very interesting to read about what went on "behind the scenes" before the mass. Reporter Andrew Ramonas's ability to connect the mass back to GW by talking about Brand Kroeger and Sergio Gor was also a great aspect of the post. I also appreciated the decision not to live blog during the Papal Mass, which (although its kind of a given that one wouldn't blog throughout a church service, let alone a Papal Mass), I still thought was respectful.

So thanks to The Hatchet for their insightful coverage. And for the regular GWBlogSpot readers, don't worry, I'll be back to critiquing The Hatchet next week. ;-)

We students is dumb?

My friend Alicia wrote on my Facebook wall today:

I sincerely hope there will be some sort of GW blogspot entry about the "GW has less intelligent students" hatchet story. Worst. Headline. Ever.

I couldn't agree more. While the headline is actually "Intelligent students decrease," problems still remain:

1. The headline does not tell anything about the story - the headline has nothing to do with the decline of National Merit students at GW or the allocation of scholarships and resources for more advanced students, which is what the story is about.

2. The headline is misleading - fewer National Merit students doesn't mean fewer intelligent students. As one professor once put it in one of my classes, having an advanced degree doesn't necessarily mean you're smarter than someone who doesn't. The same principle applies - quantifying the "intelligence" of a college student by a test is inaccurate and, well, unintelligent.

3. The headline paints GW in a bad light - while I know it isn't The Hatchet's job to defend the school, and while I recognize the subject was a necessary and important one to cover, is that really the headline we want prospective students to see when they come for April visits?

Granted, this is all a matter of semantics. But still, perhaps a better choice of words would have been, "Fewer National Merit students coming to GW," or "Does GW value smart students?" Both of these address the topic of the article, and are truthful, without making it seem that GW students are growing stupider by the year.

PS - Alicia, who suggested I blog about this, is studying abroad in Prague, which just goes to show how these perceptions and critiques don't stop at the boundaries of campus.

Unfolding debate about news judgement

There's an interesting debate going on over at The GW Patriot about whether or not The Hatchet is sitting on a story about a (former?) SA member getting arrested for allegedly hitting an officer and/or a member of Phi Psi. I have absolutely no information about the incident, nor do I know exactly how The Hatchet determines what is newsworthy and appropriate to print, but it could be an interesting case study in the differences/limitations of both blogs and print media.

EXCLUSIVE UPDATE - GW Student Arrested at HellWell: "The Hatchet twisted my words and conveniently omitted information"

On Thursday, The Hatchet featured a story about Jennifer Sales, a GW student who was arrested after entering HellWell without her GWorld, then calling MPD when UPD tried to detain her.

While several other GWBlogSpot bloggers wrote about aspects of this story, including a critique of the article's placement in The Hatchet, a critique of the article itself and two examinations of the story as a whole, I e-mailed Ms. Sales to get her side of the story, and find out exactly went on. Was she happy with how her side of the story was told? Did The Hatchet do a good job of exposing the facts?

According to the following response e-mail from Ms. Sales, the answers are "No" and "No":

Hey Andrew-

In fear of retribution, I cannot say much. The Hatchet twisted my words and conveniently omitted information. "Student-run paper" i don't think so. I called MPD for a valid reason- i'm not a rebel without a cause.

I asked Ms. Sales to elaborate on her criticisms of The Hatchet, and why exactly she called MPD. I got the following e-mail in response:

retribution from SJS- I just got a judicial letter saying I may be expelled.

Although she doesn't mention specifically what the omitted information was, it's pretty clear that Ms. Sales is unhappy with The Hatchet's coverage. Given Hatchet editor in chief Jake Sherman essentially saying that he thinks The Hatchet did all they could to provide the facts, despite the fact that Sarah and I got additional information, and given the strong student interest that this story seems to be generating:

POLL QUESTION:

~ flexiPoll: free online web poll ~

What's the deal with the arrests at HellWell? Don't ask the Hatchet.

While David and Basil already covered the basics of the student who got arrested for sneaking into HellWell, I had a bigger problem with the story: namely, it wasn't big enough.

The crime log on the opposite page took up more space, for crying out loud. And really, the story reads like an extended crime log piece: girl tries to get in, can't, gets arrested. There's no discussion of whether this has happened before -- is HellWell being overrun by people sneaking in? What happens if I leave my Gworld in the lockers downstairs, but go outside to take a phone call and then try to get back inside? Is there a new crackdown on security taking place? Have students complained of a lack of rule enforcement? (Since spring break, I've noticed staff being especially vigilant about the "show your Gworld to staff" rule, which has been in place but was never really enforced.) I have no idea if this is just an isolated incident of a girl breaking the rules, or a new crackdown, or what. And I certainly couldn't find anything out by reading the Hatchet.

If the story was only highlighted because someone decided it was a slow news week (which, guys? Since you had an April Fool's issue on Monday, you have to cover a week's worth of news; this is the best you could do?), then what is it doing on page 3? And why is page 3 almost completely covered in ads? Was there really no other news for seven days? I mean, if nothing else, I'm sure someone spoke at the SMPA and there was probably free food involved.

In fact, in this week's paper, the three of the five inside news pages are ENTIRELY dominated by ads. That's unacceptable. Although ads pay for the Hatchet to be printed, they can't be the most content you see for the first half of the paper. The pages with the most news -- 9 and 10 -- are content-heavy, while pages three and five barely have a quarter-page of news. How the hell is that engaging to a reader? The appalling lack of news judgment here makes me think the Hatchet cares more about making its advertisers happy than it does telling its readers what's going on in their world.

When I picked up the paper on Thursday, I thought "oh, this is a pretty heavy paper. I bet there's a lot of interesting stuff going on." Now, my mom was a journalist and I will read anything that's put in front of me, but I don't normally read a paper cover-to-cover. So when I saw that the first two inside pages of the Hatchet were over half ads, I skipped to the crossword. I didn't even realize there were more news pages until I went looking through the paper just now. When a newspaper's layout is bad enough that I don't want to go looking for stories, something has gone terribly wrong. Congratulations, Hatchet: you've defeated me. I can no longer figure out what the hell you guys are trying to do, but it's certainly not trying to bring news to campus.

(If I sound a little righteous here, it's because I really, really love good journalism. And this isn't it.)

Because Sometimes You Gotta Laugh

GWBlogspot was featured in the April Fools' day edition of The Hatchet:



Apparently we were beaten the first round by logic. But then logic lost to swastikas, and swastikas lost to EBK, and--let's be honest--who could hope to beat EBK?

Just thought I'd point that out to everyone.

Aswani on the Tower Records CVS Plan: "I do support seeing a CVS there"

As part of The Hatchet's coverage of the decision to make the old Tower Records space into Foggy Bottom's tenth CVS, newly-elected SA President Vishal Aswani, when asked about his thoughts on the matter, told the paper:

"I do support seeing a CVS there just because as a GWorld vendor - as a partner in the GWorld program - it's just a significant opportunity for students to use their Colonial Cash there at a resource that is kind of multi-purpose," Aswani said.

He added that this CVS would be more convenient than other locations in the area because of its proximity to GW's non-undergraduate population, including law school students and the Marvin Center staff.

"What's going to be a great thing about having that CVS there, because it's a GWorld partner, it will help educate the graduate school population on the advantages of using GWorld," Aswani said.

While I recognize that Aswani represents all students, including law school students, and while I think he is right for praising the GWorld-friendliness of the new store, he fails to address the following:

A) There are two GWorld-accepting CVSs within three blocks of the law school - at 1901 Pennsylvania Avenue, and at 1900 K St.

As a visual, here are directions from the Law School (2000 H St. NW) to those CVSs:


View Larger Map



View Larger Map

B) The CVS aside, Aswani makes no mention of the fact that GW administrators bascially dismissed GW students in their comments on the matter:

"Will we actively seek input from the student body? No. Are there mechanisms for student input? Yes." [University Spokesperson Tracy] Schario said." ("CVS may occupy vacant space in Shops at 2000 Penn," The Hatchet, January 28, 2008)

"University spokesperson Tracy Schario said Monday that the CVS would benefit both the campus and the businesses housed in 2000 Penn.

'I think you have to look at the context of that particular space,' Schario said. 'It's in an office building, and while it's in a GW-owned building and in a campus environment, it's a heavy mix of business customers first and students second.'" ("CVS to open in 2000 Penn.," The Hatchet, March 27, 2008)

While it may be too late to do anything about this issue, I am hopeful that in the future Aswani will recognize that in some cases, standing up for students means standing up to administrators.

In the meantime, all those opposed to the construction of another CVS in Foggy Bottom can join the "We Don't Need Another CVS!!!" Facebook group.

What's The Hatchet Afraid Of?

In the last round of elections, the Hatchet refused to endorse anyone. But in the runoff, the editorial board has endorsed Vishal Aswani. What changed?

Neither Kevin Kozlowski nor Vishal Aswani has any exceedingly noteworthy achievements under his belt. But the Student Association senate has not historically been the place to do that. Evaluating them more heavily on their leadership capabilities, drive to effect change within the University bureaucracy and thoughts on how best to represent the average student's needs, this page found only one candidate to lead next year's student government. After meeting with and re-evaluating the remaining two candidates, The Hatchet endorses Vishal Aswani for the SA presidency.

Okay, the lead of this editorial is pretty funny -- acknowledging the relative unimportance of the SA is a nice touch. But one meeting with the guy, and we've gone from "a hint of insincerity" about Aswani's campaign to full-throated support? Granted, a hint of something is a pretty weak reason for not endorsing someone -- something tells me the board was probably split on this and couldn't reach a decision.

In fact, the closer I read these editorials, the more convinced I am that the Hatchet almost endorsed Aswani the first time around. This line from their original endorsement editorial is most telling. It's from the paragraph in the editorial talking about the problems with Aswani's positions -- the last sentence, normally an attempt to put a cap on what my editorial professor called "opposing view":

We also were impressed by Aswani's plan to form a database with corporate sponsors and government grants for student organizations. This showed his deft ability to research other universities' plans and develop a viable solution to the problem of inadequate funding.

Why was that in the negative paragraph? This editorial has the fingerprints of internal debate all over it. It seems like this may have started out as a pro-Aswani endorsement, before someone (or, more likely, several someones) started touting OG Oyiborhoro. Obviously, "we got into a huge argument about these two guys and couldn't make up our minds, so we're not endorsing anyone" is a bad reason to write an editorial. But it's the board's responsibility to explain their positions, and this editorial doesn't do that at all. The negative coverage of Aswani is weak, and the pro-Oyiborhoro paragraph seems crammed in -- as though in the final readthrough of this draft someone brought up the fact that "he seemed the most serious."

I have no problem with the Hatchet withholding its endorsement, or with the board changing its mind later in the cycle. But the editorial board needs to back up these actions with facts, and neither of these editorials does that. Aswani comes off in the first editorial as a little too idealistic, but that's a stupid reason not to support him. The Hatchet didn't make clear the reasons it couldn't endorse anyone, and it didn't explain what changed the minds of the people on the editorial board. This is pretty shoddy journalism.

(A note: I didn't vote in the regular election and probably won't vote in this one. All I know of these candidates is what I read in the Hatchet and how their supporters treat me when they accost me in the streets on my way to class.)

Two positives and a negative: The Hatchet's SA Election Blogging

I think it was from an episode of "Family Guy" that I learned to criticize by starting out with a positive comment, then a negative, and then finish with a positive comment.

It’s in that spirit that I analyze The Hatchet’s news blog this week.

First, the positive: the Hatchet’s election night coverage on their news blog was comprehensive, informative and timely.

Now, the criticism: In the blog post detailing the timeline about the election results, Hatchet reporter and blogger Andrew Ramonas included such postings as:

11:16 p.m. Tim Miller was just seen throwing a football across the ballroom with
SA executive vice president Brand Kroeger.

11:17 p.m. EVP candidate Kyle Boyer throws the football to Kroeger, who returns the football to Chris Rotella. Rotalla then hits an innocent bystander. “Stop throwing the
football,” Miller said over the microphone. (You’ll note that he started it a few moments ago.)

11:32 p.m. Presidential candidate Tarek Al-Hariri is asking about hanging chads. We sense a court case.

11:42 p.m. “Ben Balter is a sex God” did not win, according to the chair. He’s going over the rules, and here are the results…

Admittedly, it can be difficult to maintain a solid, serious dailogue when there's nothing going on. Ramonas acknowledges this in one of his blog entries:

11:31 p.m. This live-blog might seem like watching an ice cube melt in the freezer. Obviously there’s not a lot going on, and we can only offer so much anecdotal commentary. Last year, with the read-out of every ballot, there was a lot more to go on.

Plus, as I mentioned in my blog post two weeks ago, I'm all for people not taking Student Association elections so seriously. But, in my opinion, these "funny" comments were somewhat out of place.

Finally, another positive to round it out: the blog’s coverage of the fire department’s response to smoke at the President apartment building is exactly what the blog should be for – covering goings-on around campus that aren’t crucial enough or timely enough to be in The Hatchet, but have people wondering, “What was that all about?”

I encourage everyone who reads this (and anyone who has an opinion about campus-wide media, good or bad) to write to The Hatchet, post about it on a blog, or even discuss it amongst your friends.

Serving the students of U.S. News and World Report

I was actually quite surprised to see that no one blogged about this week's conference on higher education costs held in GW's Jack Morton Auditorium for a couple of reasons:

1. The conference was sponsored by the Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and was televised on C-SPAN - I know that GW students are somewhat used to the university showing up on C-SPAN or CNN given the amount of televised events held here, but it's still pretty cool.

2. The conference featured University President Steven Knapp - again, cool to see something GW-related (in this case, our president) on TV.

3. One of Knapp's answers was simply crazy - I thought that given the fact that this issue directly affects students, as well as the fact that one of Knapp's answers was off the mark (which I talk about below), everyone would want to write about this. But I guess the more popular story wins in the end - it's understandable that when choosing what to write, SA Elections are a better draw that President Knapp speaking about tuition. In all honesty, if I hadn't waited until the last minute to post this week, I probably would've continued writing about the upcoming elections.

But I digress. Back to Knapp's answer...

According to The Hatchet, Knapp listed one of the reasons for the university's high spending as U.S. News and World Reports' annual college rankings:

"'Every one of the measures for which you get high marks in rankings in
(U.S. News and World Report) works against cost saving. Every single one of
them,' Knapp said, as he listed the various ways schools receive points, such as
high expenditures, technological capabilities, and a low student-faculty
ratio."

I understand that the university wants to stay competitive and look prestigious, but spending more money to comply with a magazine's ranking system that is fast being regarded as unfair and a poor indicator of a college's actual performance? If it's a choice between having a marginally better ranking or coming out of college without five or six figures worth of debt, I'm willing to drop a couple points to save a couple bucks.

And so it begins...

With February comes Valentine's Day, those first few midterms and papers...

...and Student Association elections.

Every year (granted, I've only been here for three), there seems to be more hype, more drama, more overall craziness than the year before. This year is no exception.

Already, The Hatchet is reporting on an accusation of dirty tricks from one presidential candidate's campaign, an announcement to drop out from another after failing to gather enough signatures to be on the ballot - followed by a retraction, not to mention quotes and comments such as the ones below:

"I’m not sure if anyone can support [SA Presidential candidate] Tarek
[Al-Harari] after this news of his campaign advisor playing dirty politics
against [Sa Sen. and Presidential candidate] OG [Oyiborhoro]." - posted by
Patrick in response to "Oyiborhoro excluded from race for SA president, running write-in campaign," Feb. 13, 2008, The Hatchet's Newsroom Blog

"'People said no,' Oyiborhoro told me. 'The old establishment said no. They
tried to subvert the democratic process at GW. People are tired of the old
establishment and that’s why I’m running. I’m going to win this write-in
campaign.'" - “Oyiborhoro will now run," Feb. 14, 2008, The Hatchet's
Newsroom Blog

"The JEC has until thursday at noon to decide who will be on the ballot. I
agree that each candidate must follow the correct procedures in order to be
place on the ballot. That said the JEC has yet to make their final decision so
don’t count anyone out yet." - posted by In All Fairness in response to "Candidates submit petitions for seats in SA, PB and MCGB," Feb. 11, 2008, The Hatchet's Newsroom Blog

Still to come are the websites, the 7 a.m. postering mad dash, speeches, campaign promises, t-shirts, buttons and other giveaways on H Street. And it’s still two weeks until the actual election, and four weeks until the presidential run0ff.

I am the only one who thinks this is blown out of proportion and is overall ridiculous?

UPDATE: I thought I should add this comment to this post - by far my favorite of the ones I read:

"Seriously, you people are pathetic. The SA is useless and the egos
involved here are incredible. It’s like you all live in a fantasy land. Dirty
politics? Campaign advisers? Give me a break." - posted by Entralled in response
to "Oyiborhoro excluded from race for SA president, running write-in
campaign," Feb. 13, 2008, The Hatchet's Newsroom Blog

So it hasn't been your day, your week, your month...

This week must've been a busy one for GW's PR department.

First came the news that after being named the most expensive undergraduate university in the country, GW is being used as an example by Sen. Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, to show how the cost of college has skyrocketed.

Then, news from the Hatchet that only after months of shocked parents and prospective students witnessing beer bottles and passed out coeds on their Thurston Hall tours is the dorm - arguably one of the most infamous in the country - no longer being used to show prospective students what college dorm life is like.

Also from this week's Hatchet is an opinion piece from senior editor David Ceaser on the downturn that J Street has taken over the past five years.

And if all that bad news wasn't enough, the men's basketball team is at the bottom of the Atlantic 10.

On the bright side, no one put up any anti-Muslim posters this week or drew swastikas on their door in a twisted attempt to elicit sympathy from the GW community. And, the women's basketball team is ranked 14th and 13th in the latest AP poll and ESPN women's basketball polls.

Student Fee Referendum

The Hatchet editorialized yesterday on today’s student fee referendum. While I am fully supportive of the referendum, I am concerned with the way it is being funded.

As a student leader, I fully understand the funding problem at our school: too many student organizations and a limited amount of funds to go around. Everyone feels that their organization is deserving of funds, and in fact most of them do. Unfortunately, our student fee is designed for a much smaller GW. It was implemented when GW was a commuter school with far fewer student organizations. Now however, with the majority of students live on campus and participate in activities. The current fee it is simply insufficient to meet our current needs, and thus in increase is warranted.

The problem I have with the referendum is how it will be funded. Only incoming freshmen will pay the fee increase. Students in the graduating classes of 2009, 2010, 2011, will benefit from the increase without paying for it. If this referendum is so important, and I believe that it is, then it is important enough for us all to play, not just the incoming freshmen. Applying a tax – and that’s what this fee increase basically is – to only those who will come after us is unfair. They do not get to vote, but they are the only ones of us who will pay for it.

In the end, I decided to vote for the Referendum. The needs of the student body outweighed to problems I have with how this is funded. I just hope in the future we can avoid funding gimmicks like this and have an honest vote on the needs of students.

Why Clinton?

The Hatchet's recent endorsment of Clinton reads pretty much like any other newspaper endorsement of her this election, except for the fact that it skimps on its reasoning.

"Although experience and a resume are not the sole matters in a presidential election, Clinton presents the best option on this front."

So experience is one of the reasons for the Hatchet's endorsement of Hillary. There must be more...

"Clinton has been able to take away valuable experience from past failures,
like her health care propositions of the past and how they have transformed."

So we've got her experience and her failures as reasons for the endorsement. I can't
wait to hear what sealed the deal...

"Although she voted for the war in Iraq and against the troop surge, Clinton's plan for Iraq highlights patience and a realistic notion of the complexities in handing the situation."

To paraphrase: The Hatchet endorses Hillary Clinton for the Democratic party's nomination because she has experience, because she has learned from her mistakes, and because she voted for an unpopular/costly/bloody war to her party's dismay but then voted against the strategy that has led to recent progress. Hmm...

I'm not saying it was wrong for the Hatchet to endorse her, I just think that they could have offered a bit more insight into why they made their choice.

(Note: I could not figure out how to get out of block quotes once I was in them, except for the first time, which was a lucky accident. If someone wants to write a comment and let me know what I'm doing wrong, that would be great. And no, this is not a plot to get comments for the prize, although I'm sure it is going to be a great prize.)

Inside The Hatchet - What Makes a Front Page

In an apparent attempt to connect more GW students to school news via the internet, The Hatchet has a new series of blogs covering everything from the school's sports teams to students studying abroad.

Perhaps the most interesting of their six new blogs is 2140 G: Inside The Hatchet, which, according to the paper's web description, gives students "a glimpse into the inner workings of one of the best college newspapers in the nation."

Already, The Hatchet's staff is making good on this blog's promise. In a post from yesterday, editor in chief Jake Sherman explains the process for selecting cover stories, using the Jan. 31 edition of The Hatchet as an example:

At about 6 p.m. each Wednesday night, we have our front-page meeting. Jess Calefati (senior news editor), one photo editor, our production staff and I meet to discuss which stories are worthy of the newspaper’s prime real estate. By that time, I have hopefully read all the stories, placed them down on our server and we can have a discussion about newsworthiness of each piece.

Each of us comes with ideas about stories, the production folks visualize layout and photo staff let us know about art.

It seems to be a reasonable and fair way to decide on the front page of the paper. But, as Sherman continues, we find out that the plan can be overruled:

After the front and inside pages were largely done, I got word from Joanna Shapes and Ben Solomon at Smith Center that they thought the men’s basketball game was front-page worthy. So we had to bump the GW Votes to the inside pages. Joanna had a nice narrative of the game so at
about 10:30, we switched the front page.

While some have raised the issue of the newsworthiness of a basketball game, as one student did in a letter to the editor published in yesterday's Hatchet, I question how the spur-of-the-moment opinion of one or two staff members can outweigh an entire meeting's worth of planning. Is this a process that the Hatchet regularly uses? Has there ever been a disagreement over this practice? Does it require more work to redesign the front page because of two opinions? Is this the best way of presenting news to the students?

I hope that Jake Sherman and the other Hatchet staff will continue to talk about this issue and answer these questions in future blog posts. Until then, I hope The Hatchet continues to reveal the inner workings of the paper and how news is covered and reported at GW.