Editorial opinion reaffirms journalistic excommunication, offers new guidance to readers.
In a highly anticipated announcement last Friday, Nov. 6, The Collegian’s editor-in-chief, Aiden Hoogstra, issued an encyclical decrying the UTulsa Gazette. He called for readers of The Collegian to ignore news from the publication, condemn it on social media and shun its staff and writers. The advisory judgement comes from the Vicar of Kronkite’s close interpretation of The AP-Stylic See’s precedent in similar matters, including past messages in The Collegian’s staff group chat, email correspondences from prior editors-in-chief and his own personal musings. The ruling comes after the UTulsa Gazette recently made a small resurgence on Instagram and Yik Yak after decades of dormancy.
Despite its claim of being “the oldest news source at the University of Tulsa,” in reality, it formed as a splinter publication when, in the spring of 1958, copy editor of The Collegian Larpin Müther advised student writers to use Oxford commas. He claimed that “by commas alone” readers would be able to understand phrases which were previously unclear and required the interpretation of The Collegian’s credentialed, well-trained editorial staff. When then Editor-in-Chief John Gregory XIV tried to curb this baseless practice, Müther, along with some student writers, stopped recognizing Gregory XIV’s legitimacy. Before one pitch meeting, Müther nailed a paper entitled “95 Grievances, Complaints, and Thoughts” to the door of John Mabee room 212, where The Collegian convened that semester.
Tensions flared, and eventually Müther and his followers resolved to reject the universal publication entirely, wholly breaking from the authority of the editor-in-chief. Later interpretations of Müther’s guidelines that the UTulsa Gazette adopts include “by headline alone” — the preposterous belief that the connection between journalist and reader is fostered primarily through just a photo and a headline rather than paragraphs of “pretentious text” — and “sola satura,” or the ridiculous idea that stories are best told by satire rather than through the rigorous journalistic standards still proudly maintained by The Collegian.
When it began publishing again in late October, the Gazette was met with fierce opposition and campus-wide mockery. Müther was, in his time, fiercely opposed to the university’s deans. He published a leaflet entitled “On the Deans and Their Lies,” where he repeatedly referred to the deans — particularly non-academic deans — as “skidmarks,” a characterization deemed so offensive that the term joins “tuition” and “university” as the only forbidden words in chalk messages on campus. In its comeback, the Gazette has continued to attack the deans, especially the Dean of Students. One anonymous administrator told The Collegian, “I don’t like the Gazette. Their continued hostility toward me and my office is disgusting. In response, we are probably going to have to further gut Greek life.” Many others simply find the publication to be unfunny; one section editor of The Collegian lambasted the Gazette in the staff group chat, saying, “Bros really think they’re The Onion [wilted rose emoji].” The message received four heart reactions.
The well-written encyclical produced by Hoogstra explores these topics, justifying the sanctions against the UTulsa Gazette by arguing that the publication is “less comically reliable than The Collegian’s State-Run Media.” He also analyzed some articles in depth, describing the Gazette story on quarterback Baylor Hayes as “bitterly divisive. … He is not green, and these comments come too soon after his injury.” In a show of raw disgust, he criticized the Gazette’s usage of digitally modified photos. “We are better at Photoshop,” he said. “Even if we were similarly depraved and wanted to produce a story viciously attacking Brad Carson, we would have done a better job superimposing half of a robot head onto his real head than they did.”
The encyclical will be presented in full to the editorial board and student writers by Hoogstra in full journalistic regalia at The Collegian’s pitch meeting on Monday, Nov. 30. Whether the Gazette continues on its path of heresy and deceit, you should be thankful that you have The Collegian to look to for guidance in these times of sedition, disloyalty and low-brow Instagram humor.
