Dear Editor,
It has recently come to my attention that your editorial staff, upon being presented with a story about alcohol consumption on our campus, deemed the story not only fit to print, but fit for the front page.
What were you thinking?
The story — although highly relevant to Concordia students, and, on the whole, more or less entirely sympathetic toward Concordia’s “dry campus” policies — could potentially have been skimmed by the parents of as many as two or three prospective students, causing the college mild embarrassment.
Who wants to send impressionable young adults to a place where occasional alcohol consumption makes the front page of the newspaper? Thankfully, some brave soul spared our college’s image by rounding up The Concordian before young hopefuls and their parents arrived on campus. This time.
But we cannot rely on vigilante justice forever. I propose that The Concordian henceforth submit all articles, columns, images and other materials to the college administration for approval prior to print or online publishing. Similar policies have been carried out with considerable success in places such as Iraq, pre-revolutionary France and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (whose abolishing of the aforementioned practice led to the regime’s downfall).
Barring this, I hope that the efforts to censor last week’s issue (on which I am sure the staff spent a not insignificant amount of time during the busy midterm season) will serve as a deterrent for Concordian writers tempted to write about issues that are relevant, controversial or in any other way remotely interesting in the future.
Freedom of the press be damned!
With deep concern,
Andreas Rekdal
Class of 2012
