# Bad taste in a college newspaper **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 13, 2001, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467 "2001-09-13T22:36:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2001, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/1 "2001-09-13T22:36:31Z")
Y’know, my college newspaper just got a new editor. That must explain the picture on the front page of the newest edition of _The Roundup_. Somebody got a picture from the inside of the lobby of our Performing Arts Building, looking out (it opens onto a large balcony overlooking the majority of the campus). Then, somebody apparently thought it would be clever to superimpose the image of a 747 aimed right towards the building. I stared at the picture for about five minutes, feeling the bile rise in my throat. “20,000 people die from a plane crashing into a building, and they think this picture is a good idea?” I said. The theatre department chairman was utterly disgusted at the image, and another of the theatre department directors took one look at it, then turned away and mumbled, “Oh my god.” Here’s a word of advice to anyone else who works on any sort of publication: Don’t make up images of planes crashing into more buildings. Sure, it may be clever, in a Manson-ish sort of way, and it may take some amount of skill with CG manipulation… but it demonstrates the most assholic lack of tact that I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2001, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/2 "2001-09-13T22:46:06Z")
Call the paper’s advisor and lodge a complaint. Not only is that in venomnously bad taste, but it is wholesale manufacturing of news. Any ethical journalist would see the perpetrator fired for it. The paper’s advisor should be able to raise hell, if not kick the idiot who put that together off the paper entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Harvey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@Max\_Harvey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Harvey)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2001, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/3 "2001-09-13T23:28:24Z")
Maybe they were trying to convey what it might have been like to look out a window at the WTC? Thinking it might be hard for those outside NYC to relate, so they substitute something more familiar to their readers? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Zero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Saint\_Zero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Zero)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2001, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/4 "2001-09-13T23:37:34Z")
Real low class. One rule of true journalism is that you don’t put op/ed pieces on the front page. He won’t go far. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/5 "2001-09-14T00:45:32Z")
Bad taste like that needs to be smacked down. As a former journalist, I am appalled. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/6 "2001-09-14T01:56:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Saint Zero \* > \*\*One rule of true journalism is that you don’t put op/ed pieces on the front page. \*\* [Hijack] Thus confirming what I always knew about the National Post. Thanks. [/Hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Phobos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/7 "2001-09-14T14:04:38Z")
Low class idiot. Complain loudly. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/8 "2001-09-14T14:18:09Z")
If it’s a college newspaper, there will be some sort of media board or overseeing body. Go to them. ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/9 "2001-09-14T14:20:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phobos \* > \*\*Low class idiot. > Complain loudly. \*\* darn. I thought this was going to become a haiku ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/10 "2001-09-14T14:23:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hastur \* > \*\*Bad taste like that needs to be smacked down. As a former journalist, I am appalled. \*\* As a current journalist, I am too. Though I can hardly complain because a lot of people here would be amazed at the “artistic abilities” of whatever lugnut did that. We’ve got an amazingly stupid set of people working on out school paper. We’ve got a rather intelligent set working on the paper people actually **read**. Guess which one I work on:) ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/11 "2001-09-14T16:38:20Z")
Errr . . . Could it be that it was an attempt to bring home to readers that any of us could have been the victims . . . and that all of us were? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/12 "2001-09-14T17:57:55Z")
There was a publication here that we got a day before. It had on it’s cover a building bending out of the way of a plane. It was an ad for flexon (some eyeglass material) with the words don’t you wish everything was as flexable’. Not bad taste as it was before the event but bad timing - are you sure that the paper wasn’t published before the event? ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/13 "2001-09-14T19:00:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Could it be that it was an attempt to bring home to readers that any of us could have been the victims . . . and that all of us were? That’s exactly what it was. It doesn’t change the fact that it was designed simply for the shock value. You can “bring home” a tragedy without having to make the readers think, “Dear God, we’re next!” > [@](#): > > are you sure that the paper wasn’t published before the event? Positive. I talked with the photographer before she took the pictures (it was on Tuesday, late afternoon). If I had known what they were going to do with it, I’d have told her to find pictures of a bunny rabbit or something. ---
**Author:** ![pesch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pesch/32/4925_2.png) [@pesch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pesch)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2001, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/14 "2001-09-15T02:38:45Z")
True, pretty bad taste, but that’s pretty standard with college-age kids. They deserve a rap, and with any luck, they’ll learn a lesson from this. ---
**Author:** ![saepiroth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@saepiroth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saepiroth)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2001, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-taste-in-a-college-newspaper/81467/15 "2001-09-15T05:25:54Z")
Haiku: _**Low class idiot Complain loudly about him stop all the evil**_