A PARTING SHOT

A year ago, full of ambition and idealism, I proposed the creation of a collective organization to represent the interests of student publications on campus. I wrote to all the heads of Harvard publications and asked them if they would be interested in joining such a group. Among the benefits that membership in such a group could offer would be the solidarity and increased prestige that come from a union of common interests. We could lobby for more interviews with administrators, ask for better access to University records and pursue joint business ventures such as increasing advertising revenues or purchasing supplies such as newsprint in bulk.

I sent out the letter proposing this idea to every campus publication. The response? Only a single reply, in jest, from The Crimson's arch-nemesis, the Lampoon.

Perhaps the proposal wasn't that well written, or perhaps it went out at a busy time of the year. But I suspect something else: apathy.

If one can't even get the heads of campus publications concerned about their status at the University, then how can one expect anyone else to care about student media? If the heads of campus news and opinion outlets aren't willing to work together to better their lot on issues ranging from distribution to campus press conferences, what does this say about the very people with whom the responsibility lies of bringing us news and opinion?

This missive is not, however, aimed at them. It would be wrong to direct concern about the increasingly precarious status of media and the increasingly marginal student interest in current affairs toward those who publish Harvard's daily, weeklies, journals, gazettes and magazines. For at least these students recognize on some level the value of such publications, spending many of their precious free hours toiling so that their words will see the light of day.

Rather, this editorial is directed to Harvard's students who aren't reading today's Crimson. Or today's Times. Or Journal. Or any other paper. Or watching the nightly news tonight. Or keeping up on current affairs by some other method, such as via the Internet.

Apathy among Harvard students is the subject of much hand-wringing, especially on this page. And though there have been many substantive discussions of the baneful effects of this phenomenon (the best example being perhaps Ethan M. Tucker's editorial this fall), no one has yet taken Harvard students to task for one of their most pernicious and pervasive failings: a disgraceful ignorance of politics, social debate, and current national and international affairs--in short, the news.

Walk into your dining hall in the morning. What do you see? Well, I've been to a lot of dining halls, and I live in the largest house at Harvard, and I can tell you what I don't see: people reading the paper. And judging by the puny recycling piles at the end of most hallways, I also don't think that Harvard students are sneaking back to their dorm rooms to catch up on the news.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a self-serving editorial about how you should read The Crimson. I'm talking about any paper. Did you know Boston has two dailies? That Cambridge has two weeklies?

Today's newspaper is more exciting and readable than ever. There are articles on almost every area of interest, and most of them are well-researched and well-written. There are the latest sports scores, lots of nice color photos, TV listings, stock quotes, and much, much more. Yet, at least to judge by Harvard standards, students find the arcana of higher math and German philosophy more appropriate morning fare than world affairs or the status of their government.

I have friends and roommates who are shamelessly out of touch with what is going on in the real world. Some other students I know even flaunt their ignorance, as if their selfish insularity were a personal point of pride. I do not understand how people can play hours of video games without knowing who is running for president of the United States or the shocking significance of the federal debt in their lives.

There are so many important things going on all around us here at Harvard, from ground-breaking research, like last year's myriad genetic breakthroughs at the Harvard Medical School, to crucial societal debates, like the fracas surrounding last year's decision by Harvard to rescind Gina Grant's admission offer. The New York Times ran an unprecedented double-digit number of articles on events at Harvard last year. We are right here in the middle of national news. If there is any time and any place that should make one feel as if he or she is "in the middle of it all," it is now, right here at Harvard.

Of course, even when the news is not local, not about Harvard, it is still equally important. Yet if students don't make a habit of keeping up with what's going on in their own front Yard--pun intended--there is little reason to hope they will keep up on events of interest to others, either nationally or internationally.

This is the state of affairs at Harvard. Imagine what's going on at other schools, especially ones with students of lesser intellectual caliber, such as Yale. If Harvard students don't think it's important to keep up with what's going on in the world, I shudder to imagine what students at America's proverbial "Bob's College of Knowledge" do with their free time.

Results of a poll conducted by the American Council on Education this month found that students' commitment to keeping up-to-date with political affairs dropped for a third straight year to an all-time low of 28.5 percent, compared with a high of nearly 58 percent in 1966.

Keeping up with all that's going on in the world is not easy. It can take several hours to read the Sunday Times. But that's not the case during the week, when all that's required is a few minutes to read the news summary of the paper, which is available for no charge at Lamont and other Harvard libraries.

I'm not trying to impose my form of entertainment upon anybody else. Yes, I find reading newspapers enjoyable. But I also believe that reading the newspaper is more than recreation. In some sense, it's a civic responsibility. If you don't want to follow the news for enjoyment's sake, fine. But realize that the news is one of the most accessible, least expensive ways of becoming a better-informed voter, consumer, whatever. This is as true at Harvard -- where you can keep tabs on your favorite administrator--as in society at large, where you can read about zoning proposals, the opening night performance of a new play or the way government officials spend your money. Through reading about the struggles and successes of others, our own are amplified and given more meaning.

If you've read this far, I'll sleep better tonight knowing you are not one of the aforementioned hopeless cases at whom this is directed. But stop for a moment, look around, and think about how many people haven't read this far and will never. Something, isn't it?

People must be awfully busy or awfully apathetic about newspapers these days. And even though we now give The Crimson away for free to first-year students (who almost unanimously refused to subscribe), I sometimes wonder how many of you out there are still reading. And how many of you will be reading tomorrow.

Andrew L. Wright '96 was president of The Crimson in 1995.