In his column last Friday, Zachary Gottlieb '10 quipped about his fellow opinion staffers feigning expertise when writing about national issues ("Fouad For Thought" Jan. 15). "Many of my fellow opinion columnists," Gottlieb wrote, "have decided to tackle national issues with the peculiar self-impression that they are experts."
This comment, coming in the wake of an exhaustive debate over airport security and terrorism that appeared on this newspaper's opinion page a debate which I myself entered appears, at first read, particularly apt. After all, what authoritative voice can we as mere college students claim on national issues such as airport security? Aren't we just regurgitating talking points we hear the experts say?
I remember having the same grievances that Gottlieb brought up back when I applied to be an opinion writer my freshmen Spring. After reading what I considered arrogant article after arrogant article written by Dartmouth students on national issues, such as health care and foreign policy, you could say I noticed the "peculiar self-impression" Gottlieb described.
As I filled out my application for The Dartmouth, I stated that national issues had no place on the opinion pages of college newspapers. As a student, I agreed with Gottlieb that I should "keep my articles closer to home." Tackling national issues, I felt, was a task best left to the Thomas Friedmans of the world who knew a thing or two more than I did about what was going on with these national issues. And yet, when I actually started writing opinions, I realized that what I had written on my application was quite misconceived. While I still feel that many opinion writers, including myself at times, feign expertise when writing about national issues, I no longer believe that national issues should be excluded from the opinion page. After struggling with how best to bring national debates to the pages of The Dartmouth, I discovered that the responsibility for appropriately discussing national issues ultimately lies in the hands of the opinion writer.
If we opinion writers incorrectly believe that our opinions about national issues must be on par with those in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal, then we will most definitely exude this "presumption of expertise." If we opinion writers incorrectly believe that our opinions can pass as a rehashing of talking points, then we will most definitely convey arrogance. If we, as 20-year-old Dartmouth opinion writers, compare ourselves with writers from The Times who can boast 20 years of journalism experience, then we will certainly alienate our audience.
This realization nonetheless raises the important question of how College opinion writers can and should appropriately go about tackling national issues. Instead of trying to write articles as if we are going to be published in The Times, feigning the expertise that Gottlieb described, opinion writers should consider their columns conversation starters, as more akin to a comment made in class than an op-ed in a large, metropolitan newspaper.
College opinion writers should not presumptuously spit out talking points as if they are stating something new, but should rather write columns to direct campus and alumni's attention to a particular issue of importance. That means that we can and should write about national issues, but we should know that our audience wants and expects us to write about these issues from a college students' if not a Dartmouth students' perspective.
When writing about airport security, for example, we should answer the question, "how will heightened airport security positively or adversely affect the Dartmouth student's life?" instead of trying to decipher in 700 words how these measures will impact U.S foreign policy. After all, we are better equipped as Dartmouth students to answer the former question.
Articles written in this way, I believe, will be authoritative where appropriate. Just because we cannot claim expertise on national issues from a national perspective does not mean we cannot claim expertise on national issues from a Dartmouth student's perspective. We must not disregard national topics, as I wrote on my application, simply because they occur outside the Dartmouth bubble. Doing so, I've discovered, limits the debates we can, and should, have on campus.
