TO THE EDITOR:
It certainly is interesting the lengths some media sources will go to remain relevant when their actual importance is slipping through their fingers like so many grains of sand. In this type of desperation the fine line between actual news and dramatization may seem hazy. However, one would expect this line to be much more distinct in a university newspaper where expanded readership yields no rewards. The article “Students robbed at gunpoint in dorm” (Apr. 4) is one of the most irresponsibly written pieces of so called “news” to come from The Daily Tar Heel.
“Upon lifting his gaze from the game, the UNC sophomore was looking down the barrel of a handgun.” This sounds more like a movie script than actual events, and rightly so, as these events could never have actually transpired. First, the notion that the thieves could have had the element of surprise in a dorm room containing several people is ludicrous.
Additionally, the chances that a pair of armed thieves would choose a random dorm room on a highly populated college campus next to a police station, and rob the occupants of only electronics and the money in their wallets is, at the very least, highly suspect.
The irresponsible journalism embodied by this article presents the public with a sensationalist narrative intended to scare them. The evident absence of evidence in the article exposes the hastiness with which it must have been written, and defiles the integrity of the newspaper as a whole.
Nick Deluga
Sophomore
Biology
