I picked up The State News today with one hope in my mind: Please, let there not be a cover story about Cedar Fest plastered with pictures of police dolled up in riot gear, or a crowd fleeing from tear gas.
The first image that caught my eye was that of two East Lansing police officers pinning a man to the ground. But wait — that picture was from 2005. Could it be The State News actually wasn’t running something about Cedar Fest for the first time in more than a week? No such luck today.
Instead, the reader was to be graced with a history lesson about the 2005 riots, which, like this year’s Cedar Fest, were over-published. The Cedar Fest story has been covered from every angle (or rather, the only angle State News reporters cover from) every day since the Monday following the incident. Cedar Fest is old news.
And following the pattern, the staff at The State News continued to publish the names, ages, MSU affiliation, major (if applicable), charges and penalties of those arrested the weekend of April 5. May I give kudos to the lack of integrity shown by whoever decided to embarrass these people. I wasn’t arrested — or even present at Cedar Fest — but if I was, I wouldn’t want my name shown to the public to be humiliated in front of my peers and professors for the sole purpose of getting more copies of this rag to be picked up for something other than the crossword.
Please start running real stories again. They’re out there.
Erik Nielsen
English junior
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