We are writing in response to your Feb. 19 staff editorial, “Long live the Trib.” The editorial referred to the Feb. 13 meeting of the University Board for Student Media, stating, “It seemed the board members went into the meeting with their minds already made up – the Tribune needed to cut its pages.”
A Marquette Journal student representative was at that meeting. The board chairman shared with members a direct instruction from the provost of the university to cut student media expenditures and address revenue issues – revenue issues that indicate student media owes the university $33,000.
A decision was not made in the meeting to cut Tribune pages. But immediate reactions from the Tribune staff on social media and in published statements indicated otherwise.
Instantly sensationalizing inaccurate information – even if some of it has since been retracted and rectified – is not an example of good journalism. Your facts weren’t correct. You fueled the fire with fallacies, and it’s still burning. You’re working against the kind of journalism you say you are fighting for.
Give the university, college and student media board a reason to help you, and maybe they will.
Sarah Butler
Managing Editor, The Marquette Journal
Alexandra Engler
Editor-in-Chief, The Marquette Journal