How dare you think it is OK to publish an article about someone who has passed away as a memorialization of a student all the while trashing their reputation. How dare you think that what you wrote wouldn’t have its repercussions. Did you think about his family? His friends? Anyone and everyone who ever knew this student as anything less than a loved one? How dare you let that article be publicized.
The Miami Student has been around forever. It has the reputation as being one of the oldest student-run newspapers in the country. That being said, I could never write for them. In my three years at Miami, I have witnessed controversial piece after controversial piece being published by this organization without apology. From the political comic produced a few years ago, to articles shaming long standing traditions such as house naming, to articles bashing Greek life without rhyme or reason, to now this: an article that ruins a student’s reputation posthumously. It was in poor taste, bad judgment, and overall ill humor that this article was written and released.
Did you think it would be OK?
Did you think students would not notice? Or that they would agree with everything you were saying? You, the writer, wrote this piece as if it was honoring or memorializing a student who has recently passed. You claimed in the title that it was a memorialization. Is that why students throughout campus are throwing your paper in the trash without even a second look? You took the words of this student’s friend and you painted an ugly image. Maybe you thought you were teaching readers to learn by example, and not be this way?
My question to you is: who are you to judge? Who are you to take someone’s flaws and faults and use it against them?
From the standpoint of an editor, this piece did not only paint this student, his lifestyle, or even his fraternity, in a poor light; but it put you in a bad light. Where was your faculty advisor? Where was your editor in all of this? Did they believe that what you were saying was genuinely well written and thought out? Show me the journalism class where they taught you that it is OK to write this way about someone once they have passed.
Maybe it's time The Student took a break. Or at least maybe it's time they really look at how it is run.
To Miami students and faculty everywhere: take note. It is how we talk about others, even after life, that really shows who we really are.
To The Miami Student: how dare you?
