Statesman Rant

As a current student at Utah State University I enjoy being able to pick up four, free, different papers every day. It enhances my studies in journalism, politics and increases my knowledge of the world going on around me. Our school news paper called The Statesman is an interesting one, in comparing it to the New York Times, Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News it hardly matches up. After receiving a job at the University I was first given the task to find all the news articles around the world on USU daily, in these searches I have learned more about the amazing things that our university does than I ever have in our schools news paper.

The University of Utah is known as the university in Utah that does a lot of research that turns out results. However when comparing USU and U of U we can see that USU does more research and turns out more results than the U of U. I praise and say that I am proud of both universities and all the research that is done that are helping people around the world. This week in news papers across the county tell of USU’s current research that went around the world included “New data on oil and gas research” and “New findings in the area of sexuality.” The British Medical Journal is taking the research on sexuality that just came out and using it to replace the old research. This is big news that went across the world, but in out own schools news paper we didn’t hear a word of it.

If you picked up the statesman today you would read articles like “Caves in the Cold”, “Transitioning into the Bubble”, and “Campus Threads” articles that are basically fluff. Once in a while you will see a good front page article on something amazing happening in our school, but day after day I am let down. When thumbing through the paper we see the recycled articles from other news papers on what is happening in the world, the opinion page is a sad attempt to replicate other papers; the good news is that the sports page is normally good it keeps the students up to date on how our fellow students are doing. As an active student the back page is the only page I really care for, that tells the weekly events that are happening.

From an outsiders view I would think that the Public Relations department at the university would be slightly ashamed of our school news paper. With constant research being done, professors, and students accomplishing amazing things, graduates becoming esteemed members in society, intriguing things happening in our local community and updates on how we are being governed, I don’t care to read about “The latest Campus Trend.” As journalists we are taught to tell the truth and keep people aware of what is happening. The Public Relations department works hard to keep a positive image of USU, letting everyone know about the amazing things getting accomplished and how we are progressing to become a better university. As a Public Relations major I would hope that the statesman could re direct and do the same. But for now I will keep picking up the school paper, so I can keep up on the latest and greatest thing happening in the “statesman” world.