Letter to the Editor

The Tartan’s Editorial Board, in its Feb. 2 statement of support for The Weekly Slant has, in its haste to congratulate it for merely existing, turned a blind eye to the newsletter’s obvious lack of journalistic standards, unfounded accusations and implications, and anonymous editorial staff-of-one.

“More journalism is more journalism,” writes the Board. One student prints out an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper without the review of an editorial process, without naming himself, without accountability, and the largest, oldest, and most influential publication at Carnegie Mellon University is ready to give him an unconditional thumbs-up in the name of “journalism”?

When the conservative newspaper The Flipside appeared on campus, the Editorial Board and I were equally concerned and excited. While we were enthusiastic to have a new publication in our midst, we were nonetheless adamant that “all campus-wide publications should be held to high standards of journalistic integrity.”

Now, however, it seems the Board will give a free pass to anyone with a printing quota and an axe to grind.

I understand well that the right to autonomous speech is protected by respectable organizations like the ACLU, the Associated Collegiate Press, and the Student Press Law Center. However, there is a proper method to follow and set of standards that must be met for acceptable anonymous satire, and The Weekly Slant certainly does not come close.

Andrew E. Peters

Publisher, The Tartan, 2007-2008