Letter to the editor: '“The voice of the students” is not the voice of this student.'

Dear Bulletin Editor, 

For 122 years, The Bulletin, Emporia State’s student newspaper, has purported to be the voice of the university’s students. For six months, the tone of that voice has been petulant and devoid of basic journalistic integrity, and has not fairly represented all of its constituents. 

Emporia State University is a business. It is a business which directly supports the community in which it operates and it is a business that is failing. When Ken Hush was appointed as the university’s 18th president, and later proposed a university structuring plan that resulted in the termination of a professor of journalism, The Bulletin’s authors opportunistically launched a crusade against Hush. The student newspaper released a series of provocatively-titled articles which published personal details about Hush’s divorce, campaign endorsements, and personal property valuation. I fail to see the correlation between Hush’s marital life, political opinions, financial assets, and his fitness to serve as university president. 

You claim that your publication is essential in promoting “watchdog journalism,” which exists to hold people in positions of power responsible for their words and actions. Such reporting is essential. You are, however, promoting “yellow journalism,” which exists to sensationalize, exaggerate, and manipulate news to gain attention. You claim to support a “pillar of democracy.” You are dishonest. You do not want democracy. You feel wronged and you want retribution. You seek to disempower and erase a leader you disagree with and in doing so, you are alienating sectors of the public you intend to serve. 

“What will become of us?” you ask. If you continue along your current path, you will self-implode. You will continue to degrade your profession and you will lose readers. You claim “to be a free and independent forum for student expression,” yet all of your pieces pander to a particular, obvious ideology. I do not wish to see the paper die but perhaps that death is necessary so it may be reborn and restructured, as we have seen in other areas of our university. “The voice of the students” is not the voice of this student. 

Signed,

Elizabeth Tate