TO THE EDITOR:
I was surprised to read on Friday The Daily Tar Heel’s positions on the progress of the sitting student body president and his administration.
While most would expect a media outlet to deliver criticisms that encourage the president to do better, instead, this administration was given a pat on the back and encouraged to stay the course.
However, students deserve to know that The DTH opinion editor is the same person that managed the campaign of the student body president and lives with his vice president. Furthermore, a member of the editorial board lives with his chief of staff.
These biases may not disqualify the involved parties from commenting on the student body president’s tenure thus far, but to leave them completely undisclosed seems wholly irresponsible on the part of the DTH, especially when the student body president and his administration received such high marks.
How can students expect the DTH to provide fair assessments of the work of our student leaders when such conflicts of interest are present and left largely hidden from the readers?
If the DTH expects to maintain legitimacy on this campus, it has a responsibility to be accountable to students by being open about these problems, rather than sweeping them under their conference room table.
Ben Smith ’14
Political science
History
