To the editors of The Maneater:
Like many other students, I am writing to you today to voice my concerns about the very offensive things published in the April Fool’s Day edition of The Maneater. The content of the April Fool’s Day edition was reminiscent of a trashy college humor website. It certainly was not consistent with the standards of quality journalism (or even quality satire) that all students in the Missouri School of Journalism should be familiar with. It was an embarrassment to the J School, the student body and the university as a whole.
The Maneater’s status as a legitimate news organization was already questionable at best, even before publishing two columns that were demeaning to women and the LGBTQ community within the last month. Rather than attempting to grow as a news organization, The Maneater decided to title its April Fool’s Day edition The Carpeteater, degrading those same communities and successfully proving that its apologies were mere lip service paid to an outraged student body. One “Hipster Life Editor” even had the audacity to make light of the very damaging things that were said in the two articles. Learning from one’s mistakes is one of the hallmarks of a good student journalist. Clearly no lessons were learned.
As a fellow journalism student with friends who put a lot of time and effort into The Maneater, I’m horrified to see their stories published alongside the questionable content that went into The Carpeteater. How can I possibly encourage any of my friends or any incoming journalism students to write for such a publication and risk their credibility as journalists? If there ever existed a group of students that understood the power of their words, I would have expected it to be the dedicated staff of the student newspaper at the best school of journalism in the world. I’m incredibly disappointed. I am relieved to hear that there will not be an April Fool’s Day edition next year. The very thought of a satirical issue that extends beyond the Forum section seems somewhat unprofessional, no matter how clever it has been in the past. However, I speak for many of my peers in saying that I am still not satisfied. It is my hope that EVERYONE responsible for The Carpeteater will publicly apologize in the next issue (front page, above the fold would be nice) and consider handing their positions to individuals more qualified to bear the responsibility of running our campus newspaper.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Evan Arnold
MU sophomore
jeaf39@mail.missouri.edu