Editor's Note: This article is satire.
In the wake of ongoing developments to the controversial School of Civic Life and Leadership, we have taken this time to reflect on our own reporting and what we have done to promote civic life and leadership. The answer to that is: not nearly enough.
In our line of work, the editorial process leaves out many voices in the drafts folders. Some articles never make it online or in the weekly paper, and some are ruthlessly killed during the initial writing stages. Clearly, this is an atrocious example of censorship and cancel culture and an abhorrent violation of the right to free speech.
Editorial boards like ours must be better and more proactive in encouraging free inquiry and open discourse. We should be publishing every single article and letter that comes by way of the Opinion Desk. Only then are we truly representing all the perspectives in our community and not just the whopping abundance of left-of-center, progressive views on our campus. Those with right-of-center viewpoints exist, too — and lest we forget, they may be small but mighty.
There should be one exception to this standard that we must raise ourselves to, though. We must make certain topics off-limits in the newsroom, as they are antithetical to our mission to ensure everyone is happy, unoffended and comfortable. These topics include critical race theory, gender and people of color (including, but not limited to, the less-sexy green M&M). Any pitches of the sort are clearly enforcing a uniform woke mob agenda, which we do not aspire to model, unlike so many on college campuses today.
Further embracing the School of Civic Life and Leadership’s spirit, we are hiring 20 new staffers to write opinion articles without ideological blinders. Because good journalism is about exposing the unbiased truth, without imposing our personal beliefs and viewpoints on it.
We commend the leadership from the UNC System and UNC Board of Trustees in their tireless pursuit to not only foster a race-blind campus in such precarious, polarizing times, but to see people for only one color: Carolina Blue. On such a hilly and unevenly-grounded campus like ours, it is critical that we, too, play our part in creating a level playing field for all.
Please also note that this editorial is intentionally brief — we understand that real journalism, like that of the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board, provides in-depth, constructive analyses and reporting. However, we are currently preoccupied with more pressing matters, like reporting to political enforcement duty at The Washington Post and The New York Times.
