If we shadows have offended ...

To the Middlebury community,

If we took weekly polls on approval ratings for the Campus, last week we would have posted our highest approval scores yet. An overwhelming majority of you who read our April Fools edition let us know how much you enjoyed our best efforts at hilarity, and we appreciate the positive feedback. Thank you for reading!

I did not feel the need to print a public apology, however, because of the things we got right in our April Fools edition. Several students expressed their concern over the use of fabricated “quotes” in many of our articles, and I am writing to apologize for a personal judgment error that I made. We did not seek prior approval from students before using their names, and though the articles were never meant to damage anyone’s reputation and the “quotes” were supposed to be so ridiculous as to be obviously false, some of our articles portrayed several students and some staff and faculty members particularly unflatteringly.

I wrote earlier this semester that the student newspaper should always seek to serve the best interests of the student body, and in failing to curb the bite in some of our April Fools articles, I clearly did not do that. Individual April Fools articles were never uploaded to the website in any searchable way, and we took every precaution to make sure that our April Fools edition would be received as we intended it: a lighthearted examination of the stereotypes we apply to others and ourselves. Despite our efforts, several students felt personally attacked, and for that I earnestly apologize. Please keep reading, and I hope we will make amends ere long ...

Sincerely,

Lea Calderon-Guthe
Editor-in-Chief