Editor,

I was going to respond to Andrew Kasper’s letter to the editor from the Feb. 16 issue, hoping to let Kasper know some of the reasons behind his perceived paucity of character and lack of journalistic integrity in the pages of TSL. Now that the Feb. 23 issue is out, he may never read it, but I will proceed anyway.

At a small place like Pomona, a weekly newspaper is not going to be a source of hard-news coverage. Big news travels fast, and event promotion is often better dealt with through the digester.

Think now of the soft-news or feature stories that one sees in our daily and weekly news sources. Would you read one of those in TSL, all the way through to the end? One about a professor you already know, love or hate? This puts the newspaper in a difficult spot when it comes to coverage.

TSL’s hiring policies by nature also affect its coverage ability and writing quality. The paper is open to all, regardless of journalistic experience or ability. A lot of people will be learning to write at the same time they are covering news. Depriving a novice of the chance to try a hand at journalism is not the reason the paper is in business; quite the opposite. Nor does the paper have the resources to consistently train new staff.

Turnover is also an inevitability at a college newspaper, making consistent teaching, editing and management a difficult practice, particularly without an advisor overseeing the operation. A large paper like the Minnesota Daily, at the University of Minnesota, can employ dozens of undergrads and grad students from many fields – and these employees can support themselves selling ads or writing stories while their dissertations languish. TSL, on the other hand, must reinvent itself every semester, greeting new staff–with new ideas about style, content and layout–while bidding farewell to graduates and to victims of another thorn in the side of smooth operations: burnout.

I came to Pomona with an interest in print journalism, and I, too was initially disappointed with TSL. At first, I thought my high school paper did better. I entertained fleeting notions of changing the paper, as Kasper suggests. Though I never became more than a contributor to TSL, I saw its workings up close and realized there would be more than just the problems I mention above standing in the way of an overhaul. Another obstacle is tradition.

One may find articles in the Arts and Features, Opinion or even Sports sections to be sarcastic, inappropriate, or to reflect poorly on traditions of journalism. But the niche the paper has realized over time is that of a creative outlet for many of the school’s greatest writers. Their contributions provide Pomona with what dull features cannot. From the satirical to off-the-wall to totally brilliant, from Amanda Baber to Sam Meites to Nate Fisher to David Tuohy to Scot Oxholm, please realize these pieces do depict the mood, interests and often the intelligence of the student body. And this is certainly not to disparage the newsgathering operation, which despite the pressures I mention above by and large informs us credibly.

Though I still cringe at the occasional botched fact, I hope you too, Mr. Kasper, will grow to see TSL as a vital part of the discourse at Pomona College.

Sincerely,

Adam Graham-Silverman ’00