How I Learned to Be a Critical Reader, An Open Letter to the Editors of the Tower

To Whom it May Concern on the Editorial Staff of The Tower:

      I would address this letter to your readers, but I’m not sure you have many readers now that you no longer print and are clearly in need of a marketing manager.

      However, I believe in the dignity of real media over blogs or Buzzfeed so I will address you with the respect you are not commanding as of late. What happened to the newspaper? I used to love picking up an issue Friday morning, red pen in hand, ready to pick out all the misspellings and comma splices. But now I have to read the issue online, and it’s so much more difficult to find your errors. I have to go to your website, download each issue and print it out myself just to do the Sudoku. And what’s the point of your newsletter? To update people, through email, about the articles they won’t be reading? If you actually printed I wouldn’t have to jump through so many hoops to read about Marist’s construction issues every week.

      Then there’s the topic of Morpheus, the spooky campus see-all, disappearing. No, he wasn’t always the nicest ghost, but he was entertaining. Now the only reason people look at The Tower is to see if they got into Top Tweets. And other than that, your only readers are pre-1985 alums and tenured professors. Your staff is full of English and politics majors, (aka people who actually know how to read and write) yet you don’t seem to be able to put out a paper.

      Maybe it isn’t your fault. The age of print is dead and news apps are alive and well.  But I know it comes down to the same thing as everything in life does: money. You should offer ad space to other student organizations. I’m sure they would be happy to help you and themselves at the same time. It’s time to try a little harder, Tower staff. I need my Friday mornings back.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Cardinal