Wildcat issue more 'sensationalistic and negative' than constructive

Editor:

Wow that was some issue you just put out (Friday). I guess you are pretty proud of yourselves? It was so much like every other newspaper I can pick up in society today: real punch-packing headlines and reporting that really gets the adrenaline pumping. And all that SEX. Quite titillating, eh?

My only question is how responsible is it of your staff to publish the stories you published - in the way you did? What is the effect that this kind of directive has?

For one thing, that edition was chock full of sex; not in an objective or instructive way, except perhaps in the one about the official attack being waged on gays - but in a sensationalistic and negative way. It was as if you were taking orders directly from some kind of social control apparatus because, in my view, your reporting was totally working on the student reader's fear and negative sexual programming.

The underlying message gave everything loving about humanity a heavy duty bad side. This is normal fare in the U.S. media today. I know that many of these reports were just accounts of reality, but what they sorely lacked was any attempt of responsible analysis or demystification.

Going into the "Police Beat" section, I noted the story that you should've reported on. Imagine the effect you would have had if you had paired the UA victim of rape with what they saw fit to arrest several homeless human beings for criminal trespass. (Excuse me, I thought this was a public university!)

In true distraction fashion, the Wildcat managers conformed to the mediocre line that is so common in the titillating but hollow press today. The worst of it is that you deny all the incoming energy of the students: Where idealistic minds might have been able to work on solving serious challenges, they're instead diverted with more doses of topical, paralyzing hysteria. The usual excuse is that you've got papers to sell, but the Wildcat is free. So what, then, is your excuse?

It all makes me wonder as I educate myself in these times of worsening crises. Was it supposed to be like the O.J. Simpson trial where, in my opinion, this great distraction kept people's minds away from the much more important issues - like the implications of the relatively unreported merger of several mega-corporations? Or maybe some highly volatile chemicals got loose "accidentally" down in South Tucson again?