By Dominique Tassell
It’s certainly an interesting dynamic running a newspaper as a team of two twenty-something-year-olds.
Because, awkwardly, sometimes we’re far more mature than our long-grown community.
It can be hard as two twenty-something women sometimes to walk the line of kindness and respect without being taken advantage of, or seen as easy prey.
Emily and I both consider ourselves kind and respectful people. That’s why, when sent in letters to the editor directed at certain members of the community regarding matters outside of our normal news cycle (and knowing that we’ll undoubtedly see them on a Wednesday after we go to print, but the day before the paper comes out) we have endeavoured to in passing give these members of the community a “heads up”.
We felt it showed a kind of mutual respect.
But it seems we will no longer be able to do that, as we have one group complaining that we’re favouring another, while the so-called favoured group is complaining that they didn’t get to reply to a letter to the editor before it was printed.
At the risk of sounding obvious, that’s simply not how letters to the editor work. And what they’re describing sounds more like being solidly in their pocket than “fair and balanced journalism”.
So maybe that respect wasn’t so mutual.
Frankly, the whole thing is incredibly childish.
But hey, we’re just two twenty-something-year-olds. What do we know?
At the very least, we now know this; people are people, no matter their position. And people, it seems, are often childish.
We’re very thankful for the crash course on how to deal with people in these positions of power; we’re sure it will benefit us greatly in our careers.
-Mini Tassell
