“Arts & C***”: Was the Curse Word Terrorizing the Cornell Sun Planted by Their Own Staff? [Updated]
UPDATED: The Sun uses QuarkXPress, and other revelations!
On Friday afternoon, “J.C.F.”—that would be Juan Forrer, the Cornell Sun’s “E.I.C.”—apologized for accidentally publishing profanity in Friday’s paper. The word, which Forrer declines to reveal, had been used to “identify” a professor. To add to the hilarity, Forrer claims the Sun was pranked vandalized:
The paper was vandalized Thursday night as The Sun celebrated its last night of publication for the semester. About 150 people gathered at our offices during this particular occasion. This is something that The Sun has been doing every year since I first joined.
[...]
The word is vulgar, and I can only issue the strongest condemnation of the person who put that word into the paper. Moving forward, we will be reconsidering whether we can host these sort of events at our office and taking steps to ensure that this type of error never happens again.
Who did it? Also, which word? Your answer to the second question—plus some thoroughly unwarranted speculation about the first—after the jump! (Warning: NSFW language—sigh.)
So here’s what happened (of course):
Arts and… that? What?
A Sun staffer wouldn’t be that thick, would he or she? But if it wasn’t a Sun staffer who typed in the naughty-naughty (drunkenly, perhaps?), then who did? Who else would have been invited into the Sun’s magical blanket fort while the paper celebrated their last issue before they all left to intern at MSNBC?
Waaaaiiit a second.
It was definitely a Sun staffer, right? Whoever did the deed had access, however short-lived, to a computer on which the paper is written and assembled. Wouldn’t it, like, compromise the integrity of journalism everywhere if any ol’ Cornellian could gain access to those sweet, sweet InDesign templates? Just how well-protected are the Sun’s sources if they allow basically anyone to use (and abuse) their computers?
Eh.
VERDICT: It was a Sun staffer. You heard it here first. Know more?
UPDATE:
A tipster writes in:
1) While LNoP [Last Nights of Publication] was at one time mostly an occasion celebrated almost exclusively by Sun staffers, in recent years it’s become more of a thing. (Pretty sure the Cornell basketball team showed up my senior year.) Per computer security: There is absolutely none. Anyone could have stealthily added said c-word onto the page when no one was looking. And there would have been ample opportunity to do so. My guess is it probably wasn’t a Sun staffer, but, rather, a Sun staffer’s friend who came to enjoy the festivities.2) There’s a factual error in your piece. You reference “InDesign templates,” which is very sadly giving the Sun too much credit. The Sun uses Quark. It’s honestly more embarrassing than anything else in this whole affair.
QuarkXPress, people. Think about that. Another tipster tells us:
The Sun hosts a party each year the evening before its last issue comes out…everyone drinks, and many outsiders (i.e., individuals who do NOT write for the paper) attend this party. Consequently, it’s entirely possible that a non-Sun staffer who was present at the time wrote the profanity. I have no axe to grind here, as I’m not a Sun writer and I’ve never personally attended the party. I have no idea who wrote it…but one cannot safely conclude it was a Daily Sun writer. Hope this helps.
Interesting, interesting, interesting.
Throwing parties at which anyone can access computers used for capital-j Journalism: isn’t that the plot of a journalism movie?
Ahem.
Do you know who defamed the venerable Sun? You should totally email us.
