There was a time when The Dartmouth Review, today a mere shadow of its former self, taught the world of student journalism some essential lessons. The paper will celebrate its fifteenth anniversary next year, and this really is not so surprising; yet, to a degree, it is.
All students publications begin because their founders feel passionate about a set of values they wish to articulate. This passion, however, takes the paper through only the earliest stages. From that point onwards, its existence depends on how well the publication can engage the campus's interest.
The Review began on principles that initially proved very effective. Its founders knew the power of shock value and of exploiting taboo subjects. They felt passionate about their cause, and knew precisely how to market themselves. Most of all, they understood the power of innovation.
Because the memory and interest level of a student body tend to be low, the strongest movements and publications are always those that can adapt swiftly to a college community's shifting moods.
There was a time in the recent past when unsightly shanties occupied by students protesting apartheid stood in the middle of the Green. In many ways, The Dartmouth Review grew up in an environment perfect for it.
However, one could also argue that the very qualities that made The Review so potent and gave the paper its identity -- one night, for example, some staffers finally evacuated the shanties' residents, chopped the huts down, and gave themselves up for arrest -- made Dartmouth weary of its ways.
There is only so much a campus' discourse can be dominated by a single, overbearing entity. The Review could not adapt to changing circumstances in time and, by the early 1990s, Dartmouth had turned itself off.
There lie in the case of The Review numerous lessons for all of Dartmouth's student journals, but not one -- including The Review itself -- wishes to listen.
The ability to engage and the ability to adapt are present in every successful student publication. We must now turn to a discussion of Dartmouth's other papers and see why the level of respect for student journalism here is so low.
The Beacon began as a spin-off of The Review, but quickly adopted a policy-wonk style of writing that discussed national political issues as if it had George F. Will on its staff. Because of this, unfortunately, the Beacon never has quite engaged the students, and has been too deficient both in focus and in good writing to attract a wide and loyal audience.
Spare Rib, however, began as something refreshingly different. In many ways it seemed to be on the way to becoming the feminist Left's Dartmouth Review, limited only by its lack of big money.
With its Sex Issue, Spare Rib brought back to the campus the kind of fascinating aggressiveness that characterized the early Review. But that tone, the passionate edge the Rib once had, no longer seems to be there.
And The Dartmouth Review, in a complete betrayal of its founding principles, has become what it never had been before -- boring. It uses the same kind of humor, harps on all of the same issues (does anyone really care about the Indian symbol anymore?), and prints in the same format it always has.
The paper that once fostered debate between faculty members (often on its own pages!) has instead chosen to dissociate from the College community and, in effect, discredit itself.
The paper that in great part revolutionized student journalism, and spawned numerous other Reviews at so many other campuses, forgot the rules of good publishing itself.
The Review, a force once so effective in mobilizing students, eventually ended up polarizing them -- and, subsequently, tiring them.
It degenerated because it lost the freshness of its audacity and was reduced purely to brashness. And Spare Rib left the focus of campus debate when it dropped both its freshness and its audacity altogether.
The degree of innovation in publishing now needed at Dartmouth requires a vision beyond that of anything students today produce.
Perhaps the Beacon will surprise the campus with a shockingly new approach to conservative student journalism. Or The Review will attempt to rejuvenate its dying self by suddenly becoming a full-color, glossy magazine, and by shifting its focus.
Many claim Dartmouth students are apathetic. In truth, however, those responsible for campus discourse have forgotten how best to engage the eager minds present here.
