O.T. New Daily Sun web site

Check out the new look of the online Cornell Daily Sun:

[www.cornellsun.com]

I still can't believe they're letting career student Joe Sabia write a column.

I'm shocked nobody's tossed him into cascadilla gorge yet. Or at least given him a thorough beating with his own shoes.

Not that I would condone such a thing, just sayin....

Yeah, it's really too bad they've chosen to give a column to someone with ideas that don't fit into Cornell's usual left-liberal mindset. I mean, how closed-minded. Er...wait...

There's always a token right-winger on the staff. We had one back in the early 80's, too.

JH

The interesting thing about that is that there isn't any sort of official or unofficial policy about the number of columnists of a particular political bent. But in the late '80s, what happened was that some conservative voices didn't like what they perceived to be the liberal voice of the official editorials, and so decided the quit the paper. At the time, some gravitated to the new Cornell Review, where they could complain to their hearts' content about the Sun. I think what they found was that there were more "liberal" students willing to put in the time and effort to put out a paper than there were "conservative" students fitting that description.

[Q]CUlater 89 Wrote:

I think what they found was that there were more "liberal" students willing to put in the time and effort to put out a paper than there were "conservative" students fitting that description.[/q]
I'm willing to believe this because there were a lot fewer "conservative" students on campus back in the 80's than "liberal" students. This is changing now, but the perception of the Sun as a left-wing rag is hard to shake.

Cheers,
Kyle

<edited for retarded content>

Well, the Review is very clearly right-wing: but, unlike the Sun, it makes no pretense of objectivity. This (very old argument) isn't about name-calling, so don't try to turn it into that.

[Q]krose Wrote:

Well, the Review is very clearly right-wing: but, unlike the Sun, it makes no pretense of objectivity. This (very old argument) isn't about name-calling, so don't try to turn it into that.[/q]


Good point. My bad.

The Review is primarily a forum for expressing political opinions. The Sun is primarily a forum for reporting the news. Two very different functions. That said, there's nothing wrong with the Sun editorial page having a left wing slant (which it certainly does). Editorial pages are supposed to express opinion. I leave it up to the reader to say whether or not the Sun's news reporting is biased as well.

Maybe it's just me, but I went straight for the The Price is Right article today. I mean Bob Barker doesn't say, Come on down, you're the next liberal on the Price is Right. But apparently they do make mistakes. Hmmm..the Cornell Plinko patrol...new intramural sport in the making.

The Sun struggled for several years in the late 1990s, fearful that a good, free Web site would hamper paid circulation. While Cornell was on the cutting edge of the Internet revolution, and hearing about that convinced Bill Gates to move faster to online things ... the Sun was a bit slow online. It since developed a decent site and as you see just upgraded. Similarly the print edition became free in most campus areas, the Sun having realized many advertisers -- eg companies recruiting -- wanted broad reach, not just a couple thousand paid subscribers. Sadly, the Sun's paid circulation was only half what it was a generation ago. The Sun is also doing far more about nightlife and entertainment than a generation ago -- stuff that's not No. 1 with the average Sun news writer, perhaps, but the kind of things students want to know about.

People who are active on the Sun's news board are perhaps somewhat more liberal than the average Cornellian. The sports people are basically apolitical or more centrist (compared to the rest of Cornell at least). They know that more people want to read a story headlined "Vesce tallies 7 points in romp at Princeton" than "Student Assembly mulls dining commons bulletin board proposal." Interestingly, while there's been discussions off and on about how many minorities have been on the Sun, perhaps the most underrepresented group has been fraternity/sorority members. Only a handful of Sun staffers are also Greeks.

There's quite an active Sun alumni committee that is supporting the Sun; a couple of Class of '68-to'72 types helped the Sun buy a substiantial building downtown. Sometimes the Sun alumns think they care more about the Sun than anyone else.

Many of the people you thought wrote rumor and innuendo at the Sun when you were an undergrad turned out to be pretty good journalists upon receiving their sheepskins. More than a dozen Pulitzer Prize-winners. Dick Schaap. Others. The Cornell Sun is the pre-eminenent college of journalism in New York State outside of Columbia's master's program.

BH
Sun 1974 (Minor: American Government)