This morning I recieved an email from the Director of Public Relations at our college. Apparently, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal wants to interview some freshmen at my college.
Personally, I have always viewed the WSJ as the newspaper that comes straight from hell. I am most upset about their belief that corporate profit should take precedence to anything else. For example, their reaction to the spread of BSE in Europe. According to WSJ, nobody should worry much about BSE because it will probably kill fewer than a thousand people, and the panic surrounding it is causing lower sales of beef products which might hurt the American economy. Another example is their stance on trade issues with China. WSJ editorials on this subject only mentioned how giving MFN status to China would allow for economic expansion; they rarely even brought up the issue of human rights.
Another thing that I hate about the WSJ is their arrogance. During the dot-com boom, they bragged constantly about how olds rules governing the economy were gone and how stock prices were going to sore forever. In fact, they even claimed that their own newspaper was partially responsible for the boom. Needless to say, when the market went down the toilet, WSJ wasn’t responsible and didn’t feel any need to admit to or even comment on their past mistakes.
And don’t even get me started on their commercials.
Anyway, this reporter is apparently looking to interview students who chose smaller, lesser known colleges rather than Ivy League schools or big name universities such as Stanford. I was about to hit the ‘delete’ key when I realised that this was actually an opportunity to explain the real reason why I came to this small liberal arts college in California.
Many of my friends went to the Ivy League or other prestigious East-Coast schools, and very few of them enjoyed it much. A typical comment came from a guy who started at Columbia University, but then dropped out: “Everybody here seems to be more interested in getting an Ivy League diploma and a high-paying job than in doing something that they actually enjoy.” I came out here to California because I wanted to attend a college where I could have fun and be in a more diverse environment with people who had a greater variety of interests.
Anyway, my question is this. On the one hand, it seems wrong to grant an interview request to a news outlet that I find to be morally reprehensible. However, this would be a chance to make my personal statement to the community that reads the WSJ. Although I’m not naive enough to believe that my words would have much effect (and I don’t know if they’ll print my interview anyway), but at least it might make a few bankers and stock market analysts thing about something other than profit for a little while. So, what does everyone else here think?
