Western Courier

Issue date: 2/9/09 Section: Opinion

I picked up a copy of your paper on February 6th, 2009 in the union after my afternoon class. I have never ever seen something so unnecessary on your front page. We are a campus of over 10,000 students that come from a wide range of areas from all over the place. We all know what drugs are, what is illegal, and what is unlawful. With that being said, we also are aware of the fact that everyone, young and old, make mistakes. Just because a mistake was committed, doesn't necessarily mean the person committing the mistake should be portrayed as bad, which is exactly what putting pictures of students in a widely read newspaper is doing. I believe that there was NO NEED for you to print the photos of the boys convicted on the front page of the school newspaper. These boys are normal people. They walk to class, talk to their teachers, and are students on campus. Why disrespect them as if they are on an episode of cops and blow up their mug shots on the front page? They don't need to be recognized walking to class, getting on and off the bus, or sitting in a lecture hall. Their teachers do not be aware of their criminal record and recognize their face from the newspaper when they hand in their work. Not only is it disrespect to these boys, but how about the school itself? I sat in the union as I read the article and saw many western campus tours come through the union. I saw more than five parents pick up the paper as well high school students considering choosing the university. How does this make us look? We've got 3 different police here, and we're rated highly for law enforcement. We know the authority is out there, and your doing your job but why disrespect these boys? Every student here is no stranger to drugs and illegal activity, it is the world we live in. Printing the boy's names would have been more legit then to point and call out these boys to the entire campus. My anger comes from myself as a student on a campus, not just because I may know some of the boys pictured, but the fact of I would have had printed a picture who sits next to me in math class, or a someone I see on the bus on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It is an issue of respect, and in this case I feel you highly disrespected students of Western as well as made the campus look much lower than it should ever be looked upon, things like the article happen everywhere you go.

-Lizzy Guerrieri, student

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