Dear Editor:

It seems as though every day that I wake up belonging to this generation-Y I must recover some of the class and respect that has been forfeited by my cohort. Every time I think our generation has sunk to the ultimate low in taste, I am surprised yet again in its ability to defame the rest of our subgroup of society.

This proclamation is brought on by many factors but is due mostly to an article on The Lantern’s front page that really pushed me over the edge. On Oct. 18, 2005, I was shocked to see the word “SEX” in large letters, spewed onto the front page. “Can they do that?” was my first question. Answering my own inquiry, I realized that yes, you can do that. Yes, you can, indeed, be that vulgar and tasteless. The only question that would have stopped or impeded this article from being written, moreover becoming the cover story, was “Is this acceptable?” Sadly, to our generation, that phrase is rarely uttered and those three little words could quite possibly be the most important ones ever considered.

Readers of this letter may say that I am an overly conservative, granny panty wearing, antisocial, stuck up prude. Sure my roommates and I had our giggly sex talks and had ground rules for getting down in room 215 and let’s just say my Victoria’s Secret credit card has seen its share of action, but through all that there was a sense of class and appropriateness. It’s simply a matter of being intelligent enough to recognize the senseless tripe that our age group produces.

What many at The Lantern forget is that there are many more people reading their lack-luster articles than just students. Working for the office of undergraduate admissions and recruitment has made that fact abundantly clear. Thanks to your earth-shattering, newsworthy cover story, I could face a barrage of parents claiming that being an Ohio State student means nothing but being in one huge orgy and there is no real academic quality after seeing this article while on tour or visiting their child. Articles like this reinforce that idea and undo all the good so many of us have worked so hard to achieve. This article makes us, Ohio State students, look like nothing but ravenous, sex-crazed animals that have to be as lewd as to do it in a public place such as a dirty, musty, basement study room. Sounds like romance to me! You’ve really reduced yourselves to third graders, kissing under the slide at recess.

It’s also no secret that The Lantern is in competition with U Weekly. It’s quite obvious that articles like this are trying to offer students the same type of avant-garde publishing. This would be like the Columbus Dispatch throwing a Columbus Alive or The Other Paper style article onto their front page. It simply wouldn’t happen because that’s just bad business and journalism. Is The Lantern trying to prove something or are you really just that desperate for news?

I shudder to even consider this smattering of unrelated quotes as journalism. There is no reference to make this article timely or facts to make it relevant. I even found several stylistic errors. The Lantern experience is supposed to give students a real-life account of what journalism and reporting is like. How can you be giving students the experience they deserve if you let junk such as this be your feature piece? Topic aside, it’s a poorly written article that should have never gotten past the series of edits it goes through. I can’t honestly believe that the author of this article could be proud enough of her work to place it in front of a potential employer. If she is lead to believe that she could, I wish her all the luck in her non-career.

In closing, I implore whoever may be reading this to stop and consider how they conduct themselves. It’s no longer cute to disclose so much. If you believe this not to be true, have fun getting a job. Allow me to suggest some of the call-girl ads in The Lantern classifieds for that’s all the class you can ever hope to attain.

~Jill Dunn