SN coverage priorities not reflective of MSU community

This letter is partially replying to the letter written by Jennifer Harper, Coverage of Relay for Life appreciated, but not sufficient (SN 4/24), and partially concerning The State News’ resistance to publishing positive articles.

I completely agree with Harper regarding The State News’ coverage of MSU events. The way I see it, The State News is a newspaper that is delivered campus-wide for free (well … we are all charged $5 for its distribution). Anybody who actually does subscribe to the paper obviously is interested in what is happening at MSU. These subscribers are most likely interested in hearing the good that MSU does — not the bad. For some reason, people who write articles for The State News find it intriguing to advertise the poor behavior of MSU students (i.e. Cedar Fest on Page One for a whole week) and put philanthropy in small sections in the middle of the paper. Piss-poor performance by State News writers, considering people want to be able to brag about the things their school participates in and not be labeled as drunks who damage property and disobey the police.

In further reply to Harper and the tendency of The State News to publish damaging articles, the greek system is almost always portrayed as a plague on MSU. I am a proud member of the greek community and probably participate in more charity events than most other students. I’d like to point out the flaw in Harper’s letter to the editor. While we appreciate her efforts as development chair for MSU’s Relay for Life, I’d like to point out that the 2,500 greeks at MSU raised about $208,000 while the rest of the 40,000-plus students raised $63,000. Kudos to the greek community for raising more than 76 percent of the money for Relay for Life with 5 percent of the population at MSU.

Sean Strassenburg

packaging senior

Published on Thursday, April 24, 2008