Student "news"papers

One thing is running rampant here in Madison these days: student newspapers littered with left-leaning editorials and spins on every conservative attempt to balance the scales. The Daily Cardinal is the oldest newspaper on campus, being in circulation since 1892. It has been decades since the objectivity of this newspaper was tossed aside in favor of heavy liberal rhetoric. In response to the compromising of the Cardinal, William F Buckley Jr. arrived in Madison, founding and growing the Badger Herald into one of the most respected college newspapers in the United States. This was some forty years ago now, and somewhere along the lines the left managed to infiltrate the ranks of editorial staff. The corruption of the Herald has not nearly reached the ridiculousness of the Cardinal, but it is evident in the reporting today that the Herald has unfortunately embarked on "the journey of the Cardinal."

I have one instance to share of the complete lack of objectivity in the ranks of the Herald reporting staff. Yesterday, the students of Madison organized two completely separate rallies on campus. One was put together by the liberals, in an attempt to arouse support for their mission of banning military recruiters from the campus. The other, one in which I participated, was organized by a small group of College Republicans in an attempt to not only counter the left's position, but in order to show our support for the recruiters and for the troops on the front lines in Iraq. From what I saw capturing images of the anti-military rally, it seemed that the two groups had garnered equally sized crowds. And later on, when the two groups clashed in front of the army recruiting station, the respective chants seemed to perfectly offset each other. However, the crowd supporting the troops and defending the recruiters won the fight that resulted in the shamed leftist throng abandoning the area and returning to their original spot on Bascom Hill. We achieved this result not by confronting the crazed liberals, we simply stood our ground and ignored their attempts to degrade us and to heartlessly steal our flags.

Now what would you expect to hear in the student newspapers about these two rallies? My initial expectations for the Cardinal were the normal disregard for the conservatives' affect and the praising of the liberals' for "taking action and voicing their concerns." I then expected the Herald, traditionally much less slanted than the Cardinal, to portray the respective rallies as having an equal affect. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded to find out that the Herald's coverage consisted of an article FOCUSING on the anti-military rally. After reading the entire article, there was only one fleeting mention of our support the troops rally in the form of an indirect quote by a member of the other rally. To my surprise, the Cardinal managed to at least fit a quote by the College Republican chair, Nicole Marklein, in their article. However their slant was shown in the picture accompanying the article, portraying a member of our rally as "shoving" a member of the other rally when the two crowds came together.

Two things stand out in my mind when I look back on the coverage of yesterday's events. The first is the total disregard for the efforts of my fellow conservatives to voice their support for our troops. The second is the ridiculous abundance of coverage for the anti-military rally. Not once in any of this coverage does anyone mention the Solomon Amendments. The importance of these laws make it absolutely critical to acknowledge them in response to the rally. These laws state that public universities who ban military recruiters from their campus will be subject to the loss of all federal funding for the school. Without this funding, tuition for every student would rise $20,000! I think it's less of a problem to deal with military recruiters than to deal with a 400% increase for in-state tuition. Somehow none of the student newspaper coverage manages to mention this. Somehow the school administrators forget about this and adhere to the demands of the liberal crowd by granting them a forum at which they can voice their concerns to the Chancellor. Somehow the conservatives continued attempts to be heard on this campus still fall on deaf ears. This needs to stop, and hopefully the beginning of the end will accompany the rise of the Mendota Beacon, the newest student newspaper dedicated to the spread of conservative news and opinions.

Stay posted, further updates are forthcoming...