Dear Readers,
Last month, to the consternation of our “reporter” friends upstairs, we inaugurated the Princewatch column. This new feature severely weakened the Daily Princetonian’s morale; we received several outraged emails to that effect. To right their sinking ship, in an October 14 editorial, the Prince demanded that the University create a journalism certificate program, knowing full well they weren’t getting the job done themselves.
We can easily envision the proposed Prince-sponsored circle-jerk curriculum: seminars on anti-news, lectures on book reports, and tutorials on giving foot-rubs to The Man. But come on, Prince. You don’t need a University-sponsored journalism certificate to teach you how to write! We’ll do it for you, out of the kindness of our heart! So here it is: Journalism 101 with the Nass.
Ferrell, Macreery both second at Heptagonals
Adam Rubin, November 7, 2005
Rubin opens his story with this slightly off-kilter, retarded platitude: “Cross country races are determined by who wants to win more on any given day, not by the numbers on a piece of paper.”
Really? Because I always thought the outcome of a race was determined by who was faster. No matter how badly I wanted to win, even if a check for ten million dollars was waiting for me at the finish line – and I’m talking one of those big-ass novelty checks Ed McMahon is always carrying around – I would not be able to win a collegiate cross-country race. I could maybe place in a high school J.V. event – just maybe – if I was chasing a bike carrying that novelty check I was talking about, but I digress.
Assuming that these fuzzy “numbers” Rubin refers to are actually TIMES that competitors have POSTED at various events over the course of the season, these “numbers on a piece of paper” he talks about like they’re voodoo fucking economics actually have a good deal to do with the outcome of a race. Poor Adam, led down the path to journalistic damnation by way of the stupid ledes favored by the Prince Sports Desk.
Into the Bears’ den
Karl Micka-Foos, October 14, 2005
It looks like Karl drinks from the same shit-fountain of awkward ledes where Mr. Rubin fills his cup. He opens what seems to be a sensible report on the football team’s prospects for their game against Brown with this nugget: “One of the most disconcerting experiences a person can have is watching the beginning of a television program without being able to tell if it is a repeat.”
What is he talking about? Seriously, I have trouble teasing out the individual elements of stupidity in his one long sentence – it’s like a wet knot of stupidity, a black hole of sorts – you can’t explain it, you can only call attention to it, coughing and sputtering and reaching for your bottle of pills…
Lloyd Wins Respect as Leader
Alice Easton, October 7 2005
In another startlingly time-irrelevant expose, the Prince discovered that 2006 Class President Christopher Lloyd is “popular” and “charismatic.” According to whom, you may ask? Apparently, Easton was so enamored of Lloyd she quoted herself in her own article. The quotation marks swirling around “popular” and “charismatic” are unattributed, leaving us to assume that the swooning Easton has fallen under Lloyd’s spell.
Easton goes on to include a wonderful little vignette: “He’s like the mayor of his class.” Actually, Alice, he’s like the president of his class. But if you want to demote him to mayor, or alderman, or councilman, that’s totally fine.
At this point the Prince’s notorious policy of anti-journalism begins. Easton writes:
“Lloyd ran for class president as a freshman at the encouragement of a friend, despite having no experience in his high school’s student government.” Tipped off by a concerned Montgomery County local, the Nass discovered – and you can google this – that Chris Lloyd has lots of student government experience. He was actually the elected student representative of his entire county’s school board, voted in by tens of thousands of his fellow students. Here at the Nass, we check our facts. How’s that for real journalism, Prince?
The mathematician and musician: Bhargava GS ’98 awarded Clay Research prize
Viola Huang, October 11 2005
Ms. Huang wins first prize for Most Obvious Lede Ever. She writes: “Few professors would be caught wearing jeans and a Hawaiian T-shirt. But Manjul Bhargava GS ’98 of the math department isn’t your typical professor.” Manjul might not be an average professor, but you, Viola, are a disgustingly, disgustingly average writer. Every time a lede like that is written, a seasoned journalist dies. Go back to your high school paper, Viola, and earn your wings.
Massey among most cited black mathematicians
Leslie Jones, September 29
In an article short on both substance and copy-editing, we learn that “Operations research and financial engineering professor William Massey ’77 was named the second most frequently cited black mathematicians [sic] in the world.” This article makes no sense whatsoever.
Calling for a safer street
Editorial, October 2005
This dignified editorial, which reinforces the Prince’s position as the well-meaning, small-minded student foot soldiers of Nassau Hall, presents a dork-minded plan to prevent so-called “unsafe drinking” on Prospect Avenue. It makes me think of the kid who was still running for student council in seventh grade, long after the gild of competition and faux-authority waned for the non-asshole population at large.
Letter Overstates Speaker Bias
Editorial, October 2005
Yes, Prince, you are the filthy blood-rag of the establishment, and here you get to stand with every establishment you can think of, all at once: the University administration…the Bush administration…Hah! You could only think of two establishments to whore for! God, you’re small-minded.
Students to send supplies abroad
Wendy Liu, October 14, 2005
Last month we learned about the Prince’s so-called Book Report Policy, by which their staffers enthusiastically endorse anything they write about. This article is an excellent example of the soon-to-be much-talked-about policy called No News is Good News. Equipped with its techniques, Prince contributors manage to fill pages of cum-absorbing newsprint with sheer, staggering inanity.
The subject of this “story” – a student group that has yet to do anything at all – proves so empty that it tests the mettle of crack journalist Wendy Liu. Read on.
A student group with the impressively uncatchy name Medicine for All People plans to ship medical supplies to needy health clinics abroad. But they have yet to send any supplies, or raise money to send said supplies. Even their plans to raise money are not definite, according to Liu, but “they might incorporate the performing arts.” So they’re planning to plan a fundraiser. Hey Wendy, I’m planning to plan a birthday party later this year, and maybe if I’m lucky some day I’m planning to plan a wedding. Can I be a Prince story?
But back to MfAP, who sound like they have it all figured out – I can just imagine the one meeting this group ever had:
“Remember An Evening For Darfur?”
“Yeah, that was cool! I saw some chick in diSiac’s vagina lips.”
“Maybe we could do something like that.”
Seniors Bush, Callaghan, Frist to Co-Chair Class Day
Alice Easton, October 27, 2005
In the words of one prominent campus Democrat and asshole: “This is going to be a nightmare.” (And not just of grammar: these THREE students can CO-chair nothing. Strictly speaking, they will tri-chair, though really I’d just say they’re chairing the event.)
For this writer, it’s a vague Apocalyptic nightmare, where the Conservative ruling elite has reached endgame and is closing rank once and for all…
The Prince is clearly already licking its shitty yellow chops at the prospect of Class Day 2006. The gentle reader just knows Easton is wetting herself as she types that “several (of the recent Class Day speakers), including Chase, were arranged through a family connection to Princeton,” wishing she could put in the exclamation point she feels deep in her soul. The conversation among editors went like this:
“Did you read this? The speakers are often arranged through a family connection to the University!”
“Oh gumdrops! Does this mean we could be lucky enough to hear version 3.0 of the Honorable Bill Frist’s nascent stump speech? I just loved it in New Orleans, after the hurricane, when he was like ‘I’m not here as a senator…'”
“Can we put an exclamation point at the end of the sentence, you think?”
More than 15 minutes: Princeton in Hollywood
Tara Mathai-Davis, October 27, 2005
This feature is a goldmine of sucking. First, Mathai-Davis tells us that “some students are dressing up for careers in Hollywood.” She soon blows the ruse that she had actually done any research, or interviewed people for real when she mentions that the three students she discusses are “considering renting an apartment together” next year in New York. Are they making it in Hollywood or in New York, Tara? So yeah, Ms. M-D, you talked to three of your friends over dinner at Tower one night. This is Prince anti-journalism at its best.
Amidst the stupid quotes from mediocre alums, and the sports-desk-lede-inspired lukewarm generalizations, the careful reader stumbles upon the coup of coups, something so fantastic that it warms the cockles of my bitter dark heart – Kyle from Real World Chicago, in the flesh and quoted extensively. Now THAT’S journalism at its best.
Police question Frist assault suspect
Jennifer Epstein, October 20, 2005
In another “Frist fondle-gate” article, Prince star reporter Jennifer Epstein comes up with none of the answers to none of her (not very) hard-hitting questions. Epstein pushes crime reporting to its limit, trying to break this case wide-open with her personal hammer of justice. Unfortunately for the fate of the free world, Epstein’s hammer seems to be structurally flawed and quite lumpy like special-ed paper mache, and all she comes up with are more obscuring quotes from her old pal Steven Healy. He heard that they questioned a suspect, but couldn’t relate who the suspect was or how they found him. With the case “still kind of up in the air” (understatement of the century, buddy: you have no motive, no perp, and no backwards hat), Healy offers a tidbit of real old-fashioned Prince-style wisdom: “In police investigations, as you question a suspect, the case often unfolds.” Oh, so that’s how they do it.
After attempted assault, calling for safer campus
Editorial, October 5, 2005
One guy tried (badly) to attack one girl once, and was foiled at like square one. This does not constitute an endemic safety threat.
The Prince calls for officers in such places as “Frist, Forbes College, the EQuad, and Stanhope Hall.” There already are officers in Stanhope Hall – it’s Public Safety headquarters.
I say: let students pull their heads out of their asses, take the most basic of precautions and let Public Safety go back to doing what they do best – not recovering lost property and driving dangerously at night.