Warning: The vibe around our campus paper's opinion section is totally different now

Back in 2018, our student editors at UConn would run almost any submitted letter, even the ones that made people really mad, because the policy was 'if it's not a direct threat, it gets printed'. Now, the editorial board debates for weeks over a single op-ed about, like, parking fees, worried it might 'cause harm'. The shift happened slowly after 2020, and I think social media call-out culture is a big part of it. Do you think student papers have a duty to publish controversial student views, or is the new caution actually responsible?

3 comments

3 Comments

gavin_clark1mo ago

Our paper killed a piece on dining hall food for being too negative, it's wild.

christopher_flores461mo ago

The dining hall pasta last week was literally cold in the middle, so @gavin_clark's writer was probably just telling the truth.

lily971d ago

My paper at a small state school had a similar problem in 2020. We settled on a simple rule: we would print any op-ed that didn't contain misinformation, direct threats, or hate speech. Worked fine. One kid wrote a long piece complaining about mandatory diversity training being a waste of time. We ran it. Got some angry letters but nobody got hurt. The parking fee thing made me laugh because that's exactly the kind of harmless topic our editors would have overthought too. Sometimes you just have to hit publish and see what happens.