A Local Republican Newspaper: The Mountaineer Jeffersonian

(Note to regular readers - you can probably ignore this post.)

I’ll be the first person to admit that West Virginia University’s newspaper is total rubbish, and that’s coming from a former employee. I spent a long time working in student journalism (three years at WVU’s Daily Athenaeum, and three more years at UMass’s Daily Collegian) and I’d like to believe that my opinions are at least minimally informed. So I was bemused today when driving home with my son to see somebody standing in front of the Mountainlair (WVU’s student union) dressed like Thomas Jefferson. My mind cycled through the possibilities before arriving at the following: a few weeks ago, I saw some coverage suggesting student Republicans were going to put out their own newspaper. Lo and behold, I present The Mountaineer Jeffersonian, which surely takes the prize for most syllables, if nothing else.

Newspapers on campuses designed to “compete” with the established brand almost always fail because they are awful. UMass had The Minuteman which was fun because when it wasn’t threatening my own paper with overthrow, it was publishing maybe three times a semester. However, WVU’s The Mountaineer Jeffersonian seems like it might be better funded, if for no other reason than part of the advertising strategy was to have the logo on the side of a Jaguar parked in front of the Mountainlair. Huzzah!

But the problems are apparent immediately.

1. The Jeffersonian Mountaineer is a better title. I don’t know who suggested putting it the other way around, but they were wrong. By making Jeffersonian the final part of the name, that’s what people will remember, not the Mountaineer part. Besides, being a Jeffersonian Mountaineer sounds like you’re a Mountaineer (an attendee of WVU) who is Jeffersonian. The emphasis is better.

2. The front page articles are fantastic, and by fantastic, I mean completely inexplicable: a blowjob for fraternities (lame), a blowjob for the ROTC (lame), coverage of the economic meltdown (basically, blame black people) and an letter of welcome from the school’s Student Government Association president (megalame). Everything included within isn’t news, but rather, news with a point. The fraternities coverage no doubt has something do with either the author’s boyfriend or memberships held by other members of staff. (And besides, writing a defense of fraternities? How daring…) The ROTC coverage isn’t news, because the existence of an ROTC isn’t news. The economic meltdown story is merely an attempt to forward the Republican talking points. And the letter from the Student Government President lends credibility, I guess, if anybody took the student government seriously…which nobody does. (Can anybody imagine a student picking up an issue and saying, “Well, I’ll only read with the endorsement of the student body presi…oh! There it is! Now I’ll read!”)

3. Obviously, this thing badly needs an editor. All student journalism does. But this thing is atrociously at undermining its own points with mistakes. Same goes for layout problems - layouts should make stories easier to read and understand, rather than the opposite.

4. Finally, the sorts of journalism taught at places like the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism is an absolute joke. The majority of those produced are sycophants who are less interested in the story than they are in everything that accompanies being a journalist. It should surprise no-one that both faculty and staff from WVU’s Journalism Department were caught up in the Heather Bresch nonsense, primarily for carrying the university’s water instead of telling the truth. Still, there are certain ideas that journalism has gotten right. Not referencing yourself in a news story, for instance. Or referencing yourself at all, really. Even the best political commentary - which is what the The Mountaineer Jeffersonian is primarily about - rarely includes self-reference, and when it does, it is by authors with established names and reputations. Nobody writing for this thing has either. (WVU’s Daily Athenaeum is plagued by the same nonsense. “Oh, look at me, I was given a column, I should reference me and my very important friends as many times as possible!”) The paper would be taken more seriously if the staff took its production more seriously.

A Conclusion?!?
The paper has a better chance of succeeding if it was…well…a different paper, run by different people. For the people who read a newspaper for the news, what matters is the news, and not the people producing it. In the insular world of blogging, we’re free to do whatever we damned well please but newspapers still contain some essence of gravitas. Ignoring that undermines the entire project.

The Ongoing Garrison-Bresch-Manchin-WVU Kerfluffle

Woo hoo! I just used “kerfluffle” in a headline. And just then again in a sentence. I win! I win!

I love my father very much. My mother too. They’re both fantastic people. Both want West Virginia University’s idiot president, Mike Garrison, to resign for his role in Heather Bresch’s illegitimate reception of an eMBA. Unfortunately, they’re not going to get what they want.

To believe Mike Garrison’s side of things, the following facts do not tell a story:
-Garrison got his job from Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s governor.
-Garrison was friends with Heather Bresch, Joe Manchin’s daughter.
-Garrison represented Mylan, a pharmaceutical company that currently employs Heather Bresch. (The company is owned by one of West Virginia University’s largest donors, Milan “Mike” Puskar.)
-Upon realizing that Heather Bresch had never actually earned an Executive Masters of Business Administration, Garrison’s chief of staff convened a meeting with several other higher ups from the University’s administration in which it was decided to pretend as if she had in fact earned it. This was promptly discovered, because predictably, the kinds of people who make it into WVU’s administration are complete morons.

Essentially, Mike Garrison wants you to believe that even though he can thank her father for his position, that even though he counts Bresch as a friend, that even though she is employed by one of the University’s most financially flush patrons, he had nothing to do with her receiving a degree that she hadn’t earned.

Let’s suppose I came to you and told you that story: would you believe it was at least potentially possible that Garrison had some influence over the outcome? Of course you would, because you’re not an idiot.

My parents aren’t idiots. They visualized the pieces, put the puzzle together, and can see the image: WVU is lead by an unqualified lunkhead who gives degrees away not caring a tinker’s cuss for the damage it does to the University’s reputation.

Unfortunately, West Virginia’s political aristocracy couldn’t give a good goddamn what people like my parents think. They have never cared what people like my parents think, or, for that matter, what anybody in West Virginia thinks. They always do exactly as they please, and play the, “But we’re West Virginians!” card whenever they get themselves into trouble.

For instance, sure, we could have had a qualified state treasurer to manage our money, but A. James Manchin was also available, and dammit, he was from the state! So we elected him and ended up losing $231 million dollars. (Or, you could have fun with Arch Moore, a former idiot governor who settled a $100 million lawsuit for $1 million instead, after the Buffalo Creek Flood. Actual West Virginians referred to the dam’s collapse as an “Act of God.” Instead of blaming the idiots who tried to dam hundreds of thousands of gallons of water with mud.)

Look, I love West Virginia, but would anybody seriously object if the city of Charleston burned to the ground with every single member of this state’s ruling elite inside? Yes, we’d be bad off for a time, waiting for special elections to replace the yahoos who currently pillage our state blind behind their constant song, “But we’re West Virginians!” But then, a week later, we’d have all new people, who for at least a time would be so uncoordinated that they couldn’t possibly be worse than the idiocracy we currently have running things.

As I said, I love my parents, but they’ve got to much faith in things if they think WVU’s president is going anywhere just because he’s a completely corrupt moron who does the will of his political patrons over the good sense that just anybody else might possess. Facts are facts. Truths are truths. West Virginia’s a painfully fucked up place, and this certainly isn’t going to be the scandal that fixes things.

Pictured above are ramps, part of West Virginia I like, one of the things I have to constantly think about whenever Garrison pops into my head.