Letters to the editor
Issue date: 2/14/07 Section: Post
- Page 1 of 1
Leave real news to the pros
Dear editor,
Someone has finally done it. "The Harbinger" is a privately owned, created and funded newspaper; otherwise labeled an "underground" newspaper by most. Yes, I have waited so long to see it happen. It has been four-and-a-half months since school started, but the first issue is out. I can't wait until early July when the next issue comes out, only another four-and-a-half months more.
I do have to say I was a little disappointed. Where most underground papers are bent on going against mainstream culture, creating controversy, satirizing modern society, poking fun at authoritative figures, burning down villages, raping, pillaging and all other forms of cultural destruction, The Harbinger actually seems to be attempting to report on real news. Now, unless my history is incorrect, underground presses developed out of WWII as a way for French- and Dutch-occupied Europe to speak out against Nazi Germany and to voice their resistance against the mainstream (meaning Nazi) ideas of the time. Underground traveled to Britain and helped develop the British underground cultural movement. Underground press even made its way to America, where it sparked a revolution in the media and still lives today. Well, by these standards, I think The Harbinger has fallen short. Most of its articles, aside from the editorial, are stories that I can find in the Monmouth local paper, The Oregonian, or Channel 8 news, and even in The Journal. WTF?! If I want to hear about real news, I will look to those places, not to The Harbinger. There is nothing unique about this paper aside from the fact that it is privately funded and created. Which, if this paper really is privately funded out of the pockets of the people who created it-ha, ha; joke's on them. So, if they're banking their popularity and growth solely on the fact that they kind of fall under the category of an underground newspaper, I think they will be disappointed. After four-and-a-half months, they should have been able to come up with a better cover story than "House Cuts Student Loan Rates"-boring. That was in USA Today on Jan. 17. I think that would be considered old news. They said, "No stone shall be undisturbed." I think they missed one stone-the one tied to the feet of the paper about to drag it down into the sea of failure. Unless the Harbinger starts acting like a true underground press, I am afraid they are doomed to obscurity and destined to follow all other unsuccessful groups attempting to "stick it to the man" in a lame and lackluster way.
-Dustin Byers
Sophomore