Dartmouth Review Offers Peace Pipe — It’s Fine, We’re All Friends Now
Dartmouth debacle development! The editors of the Dartmouth Review posted letters today apologizing for their recent cover depicting a scalp-wielding Native American. Well, "apologize" might be too generous. They regret that people were offended.
In one letter, Editor-in-Chief Daniel Linsalata '07 says the cover was meant to be "hyperbolic, tongue-in-cheek commentary" directed at the Dartmouth Native American community's leadership, not the community itself. The managing and associate editors separately call the cover a "mistake," and regret that it distracted from the publication's "serious journalism."
As terrible as it sounds, these guys learned a lesson. [Cue "Full House" lesson-learning music.] There's many a broken soul on the shoulder of the student publication highway -- people who think irony is a defense for the patently offensive. But these guys seem to have emerged relatively unscathed. They stand by their content. They still work for the paper. Their Cato internships remain secure. Peace reigns throughout the land.
Offering a peace treaty to the Native Americans, huh? Yeah, that has a sterling history of working out well for them.
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December 7th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
ummm, you guys should get on the harvard native american controversy. see yesterday’s crimson article about team names, and reactions over email lists. get your people on it. now.
December 7th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
this is hardly a “peace treaty.” it’s more along the lines of a celebrity apology, saying “i’m sorry people were offended” rather than “i’m sorry for my actions,” and the difference between those two is huge. the only lesson these guys learned is that inflammatory covers/content = record press coverage and website hits. the closest linsalata comes to a real apology, “However, I regret that the cover may have precipitated further feelings of offense within Dartmouth and overshadowed more thoughtful discussions of these matters presented in the articles within the issue itself,” is bullshit. if you think for a second that dan linsalata’s primary (or secondary or tertiary on down) concern is “thoughtful discussion,” you’re giving him too much credit. he (and the review) likes to inflame and excite, and doesn’t really care what the consequences are, least of all other people’s feelings.
and finally, to claim that anything in the review qualifies as “serious journalism” is still a crock of bull. did anyone else see Nick Desai’s article, “The Annotated President Wright?” i’m still trying to comprehend how someone can be so smug about an article in which over half the words come in huge block quotations with little to no explanation, much less claim that the publication containing it is “serious journalism” or well-written.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:36 am
in regards to harvie’s comment, i checked the crimson and it was quite interesting how all of this dialogue is similarly framed.
Unfortunately, the difference that may affect whatever that may come out of this dialogue is our quarter system and having the ability to choose being on/off. One concern I have is that this so-called apology is something cosmetic. They can claim that they settled the issue through posting this, but at the same time there has been NO conversation between the Review and those who have felt the most offended. Seriously, let’s own up to our positions. And I don’t mean full out acidic blood bath of words and middle finger flipping.
Point is - I’m wondering if this is all happening at the worst time and won’t get fully addressed because of it.