April foolery

In writing the Distorter (the name the paper takes on during April Fools'), I was at first excited I'd make some biting commentary toward the university and student life. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the risks I'd run into if I were to be as daring as I wanted to be.

Pretending to be an Onion contributor for a day is many college student reporters' dream, but there are some risks you run into. I had already decided I wouldn't target or name anyone, who wasn't well known. In other words, not directly mock any students or faculty, but more so administrators. Even poking fun at administrators, however, was risky, or at least I perceived it as such: I didn't want to burn any bridges or cause awkward tensions.

I had little to lose: I'm graduating next month, my position as editor will end soon and I doubted the stories I would've written would've put the paper in any sort of legal woes.

So why refrain from limitless mockery? Well, I didn't want to do anything I'd regret. At 11 p.m., jokey headlines and stories always seem more funny than when someone comes knocking at your door, demanding an apology or yelling at you for screwing with their reputation. In that regard, you have to think beyond the production-night punnery, and into the next day, and beyond.

So did we have fun while making a statement? Readers can decide for themselves.

***


The other day, I received a call from building services, which performs maintenance and cleaning at the university. They were upset about a story I'd written about an author who made a book about bathroom graffiti who was asking for submissions. Building services thought the story would provoke more incidences of graffiti and vandalism. I assured him it wasn't my intention to cause graffiti, and that I'd rewrite that part of the story calling for submissions.

So what to do when you write something like that? Just because you write it doesn't mean you condone or condemn it; you're just reporting on the facts, or ideally so. On the other hand, if you or your editor deemed it wasn't worthy of the paper's pages, you wouldn't pursue the story. That's attaching newsworthiness to certain topics. Although the intellectual merit of my story was obviously lacking, I thought it to be an interesting book and since everyone sees graffiti in their lives and perhaps wonders what becomes of it, it was newsworthy.


***

This has nothing to do with journalism, but I was thinking the other day: you know how brain cancer is supposedly linked to cell phone usage? What if researchers don't take into consideration the fact that cell phones add stress to your life? If you have a cell phone, you're always worrying that the battery is charged, or that you don't forget your phone, or that you check your texts and voicemails, or that someone is trying to call you, or that the phone is silenced. Plus, you submit yourself to the demands of everyone who has your number. On the other hand, if you didn't have a cell phone, you wouldn't have to worry about any of that; people would have to wait for you to return their calls. Perhaps it's not so much the electromagnetic-cancerous waves bouncing into your brain as the added cancer-inducing stress from having a cell phone that causes cancer.

In the past year I've went several times without cell phones, and in Mexico I depended on it far less because they are so expensive to use. For two weeks last semester I didn't have a cell, and it was nice. I dare readers to go without their cell phone for a day: how does it change your life?