Modest proposals for reforming The Pioneer Log

By Caleb Diehl and Zibby Pillote /// Managing Editor and Editor-In-Chief

Here at Lewis & Clark College in beautiful Portland, Oregon, everything is just chipper. We’ve decided to make some changes to our newspaper coverage.

At the Deans’ Reception for first-year Oregon Students last Thursday, some students called The Pioneer Log’s coverage negative and opinionated. Dean of Students Anna Gonzalez and Dean of the College Tuajuanda Jordan suggested some people may find the newspaper too negative. One student compared our paper to a tabloid.

For anyone who holds these views, we’d like them to know that we will humbly accept their advice and reform our ways. First, free speech has become unprofitable, so we’re introducing paid speech. We’ve worked with the Entrepreneurship Center on our paid speech venture competition project, and after scheming against other teams, we’ve come out on top. No one else owns speech. Everyone pays.

Free speech versus paid speech

With our additional funding, we’ve sent our staff to public relations school to pick up a few tips. Offensive ideas hurt people’s feelings, so we’ve directed the opinion section to run articles exclusively on weather. The weather will always be rain, so no one will have anything to fight about. On second thought, because administrators  and students have noted that we’re too negative, we’ve permanently changed all weather to sun.

No reporting on downers

Oppression and social justice issues might be perceived as downers, so this sentence ends here. What’s next?

Weather. It’s looking 80 degrees and sunny out there today.

No more coverage of Monica Lewisnky or Mary Szybist

To shed our reputation as a tabloid, we’ve decided to stop running articles on celebrity students, especially Monica Lewinsky. National award winners are also celebrities, so we will stop writing about National Book Award Winner Mary Szybist. Because it mentions sex and relationships, Dear Virgins will also have to go.

Ignorance is truth

Our next change in policy is to always kill the messenger. Bad ideas become much worse when journalists repeat them out loud. Reporting about how administrators shut down the Rusty Nail Co-op is worse than shutting down the Rusty Nail co-op. Ignorance is truth.

We’re going to let anyone who feels like it read all our stories before publication, so they can strike out any facts they don’t want to become news. That way, no one will have to wait until Friday to read the paper. Nothing bad will happen, because we never told you that anything did.

What is the point of journalism? To keep everyone happy. 

As we move forward, let’s redefine journalism to keep everyone happy. Journalism to us means repeating every word that comes out of the mouths of people in authority. Good journalists maintain excellent short-term memories and mimicking skills. With that in mind, here’s our new editorial policy: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.